


Witches, Wizards, and Wandering Gods

by nagapdragon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Merlin (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hogwarts years, How Do I Tag, M/M, Pre-Hogwarts, Rating May Change, Sandbox fic, Ship Tags To Be Added, Wandering Gods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-15 04:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2215434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagapdragon/pseuds/nagapdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginning of an expansion of More Than Mortal, because the more I thought about it the more I loved that universe.</p>
<p>The first witches and wizards were the children of Muggles and the Wandering Gods, mortal children with immortal magic. As Wizardkind gained strength and became its own community, the Wandering Gods fell to legend, but not out of existence. And occasionally, they still touch the world.</p>
<p>Mostly, I like squishing fandoms together and letting the magic happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Reign of Terror of Lady Violetta Agrippina Holmes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [More Than Mortal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2168643) by [nagapdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagapdragon/pseuds/nagapdragon). 



> I would love to talk about this universe- visit me at nagapdragon.tumblr.com! I'd love to hear what you think and any suggestions for scenes people would like to see as I go along.

“We received a letter from Lady Holmes this afternoon, love,” Ygraine tells Uther over the dining room table. They dine at one end of the long table, dismissing the house-elves once their dishes are served for a little bit of much-needed privacy. 

So much of their lives were always public, both born to some of the oldest bloodlines in the Wizarding world, but a moment of peace became a rarity with Uther’s election to Minister of Magic. They always have people visiting, always have official appearances and charity dinners and _Rita Skeeter_. 

Ygraine rests her hand on the growing curve of her abdomen, faintly able to feel her little boy’s magic spark against her own. Skeeter’s expose on Ygraine’s pregnancy hit the front page of the Prophet before she had a chance to even tell Uther, with wanting to tell him in person and not through the Floo and all. With that wretched woman on the loose, paranoia is always rife at home. 

To think, that she’s wedded to the Minister of Magic and yet is more afraid of Rita Skeeter than of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named’s threats to finalize his takeover of the Ministry with Uther’s head on a pike if he does not support him. 

Uther sets down his fork, accepting the letter she offers, and behind him Ygraine sees Gaius close the door and escape from the room. Lovely. 

“A party invitation?” Uther questions. Ygraine waits for it. “GAIUS!”

“He left, Uther.”

“Bloody hell. Linny!” The Head House-elf appears with a muted crack, bowing in the House Pendragon livery Uther ‘threw away’ because their servitude does not mean he will permit them to look sloppy. 

“Master Uther called?” 

“Clear my schedule on this date,” he commands, handing the invitation to Linny, “and make certain our finery is clean and prepared.”

“Yes, Master Uther, Mistress Ygraine.” Linny curtsies, disappearing before she comes up from her dip. 

Uther buries his face in his hands. “If it weren’t for Gaius, I would try to have that woman exiled from Britain.”

 

***

 

Fawkes brought the letter straight to Godric’s Hollow under a cloaking spell, dropping it between Albus’ hands before coming to roost on James’ head. Serious news, then. Fawkes would not risk bringing it here if it were otherwise. He touches the seal with trepidation, taking the time to lift his wand and check for Dark magic, playing for time. Phoenixes are intensely loyal and deeply magical. Were it cursed in any way, Fawkes would never bring it to him. 

“You see, James, this is what happens when you let your hair be that much of a nest,” Lily jokes, trying to crack the somber tension in the air and falling flat, folding her hands over her stomach and projecting calm and love to her sweet boy to make him just stop kicking. 

“Thank you, Lily, I really hadn’t noticed,” he replies dryly, holding a serious face for all of a minute with Fawkes balanced on his head before cracking up laughing. 

Albus cracks the seal then, skimming the lines before setting it down on the table and torching it with his wand.

“Bad news, Dumbledore?”

“Violetta Holmes is having a party.”

“We’re in the middle of a war,” Lily says, “does anyone really have enough safety for a party? Seems like a trap, to me.”

James drops his forehead to the table, reminding Albus that so much of the Order is naught but children, that James and Lily are hiding for their lives when they ought to be enjoying the beginnings of their life together. “Lil, I know you never really socialized with Slytherins and she was a few years above us, but even you can’t have missed all the legends about Lady Violetta Agrippina Holmes.”

“Clearly, I have.” Lily crosses her arms, and Albus sits back. He’s not getting on the wrong side of Lily’s stubborn streak. Let that piece of folly fall to her husband.

“She’s one of the most influential purebloods out there, the Holmes family always has been, but both she and her older brother scandalized high society. Mother and Father couldn’t stop talking about it, with him refusing to take on the title of Lord Holmes to go be a Healer and her bearing a child unwed, without any father in the picture at all, and not doing it in secret.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t a trap.”

“Holmes Manor is warded more heavily than any other pureblood mansion, and she’s a master of anti-violence spells. Rumor says that even Merlin himself can’t break one of her anti-violence spells.”

“Exaggeration,” she challenges. “Nobody knows how powerful Merlin was, he lived what— twenty centuries ago?”

James looks at Albus pleadingly, and he sighs. “He did. And when I last visited Nicolas, some two years ago, Perenelle dragged Merlin out of the Andes for dinner.” 

Lily stares at him, then rounds on James. Albus takes that as a sign to make a hasty exit, Fawkes having already abandoned him. 

“Next thing, you’re going to be telling me you dated Morgana Le Fay back when you were an arrogant toerag,” Lily hisses, gearing up for what promises to be an epic fight that he may or may not send Sirius to break up. With ice cream. Definitely ice cream, possibly with chocolate cake.

“I wish,” James laughs, and Albus winces as he Disapparates.

 

***

 

“Nicolas! Merlin!”

Nicolas and Merlin share a look of _I-don’t-remember-what-we-did-to-upset-Perenelle-but-it-must-have-been-something_ before Nicolas flicks his wand at the forge, letting the flames die out and Vanishing their most recent failed experiment. Merlin’s interests have evolved over the last nineteen centuries, in the Dark Times in between Arthur’s lives, but Nicolas is refreshingly straightforward. He is an alchemist who succeeded, becoming an immortal alchemist, and now uses it to his advantage to try progressively riskier experiments with Merlin because neither of them can die. 

Well, they aren’t entirely sure about that, because it isn’t like immortality it a common occurrence, but Nicolas and Perenelle have done a lot of reckless things in the last six hundred years and Merlin exponentially more and they’re still not dead, so… Well. Escalation. 

Perenelle demolished Nicolas’ lab a hundred years ago when he ‘accidentally’ cut off his hand and it took a full two months to repair itself. She’s convinced it was on purpose, but knowing Nicolas, Merlin isn’t quite sure it was. 

Perenelle is waiting in the kitchen, knives flying around behind her in a fashion that is only slightly more threatening than efficient, so they aren’t in too much trouble. She doesn’t offer them anything to drink, pouring herself something and putting it away, which does mean they’re in trouble. Perenelle was raised to be a proper gracious hostess, and six hundred years haven’t changed that about her. 

“Darling, what’s wrong?” Nicolas asks, while Merlin makes himself quiet and inconspicuous, a skill her learned in Arthur’s very first lifetime that has proved invaluable since. 

“Violetta Agrippina Holmes,” she answers, holding out a paper.

“All of us?” he queries.

“There were three individual letters, with all the accompaniment blackmail. I destroyed one, used another to confirm our attendance, and saved the third for you to destroy, husband.”

Nicolas closes his eyes, swearing softly in French. 

“When do we leave?”

“Two days.”

“Merlin’s beard,” Merlin swears.

“Stop swearing on yourself, Merlin, and especially on your non-existent beard.”

 

***

 

_A letter,_ Nagini hisses, coiling in Tom Riddle’s lap to bask in the warmth from the roaring fireplace. _The bumbling idiot brings it._

_We need the bumbling idiot, my beauty,_ he replies, trailing his fingers over her head. On cue, Wormtail brings a crisp letter on a silver platter, shaking in the presence of his Dark Lord. Tom accepts it, dismissing Wormtail with a wave. 

_When he’s given up the location, can I eat him?_

_Of course you may,_ he hisses softly. _How cruel would I have to be, to deny you that._

He breaks the seal on the letter, one hand staying on Nagini, and reads. Slowly, he’s in no hurry. Very little hurries the Dark Lord these days, after all, with Britain falling into his hands. 

 

_Tom Marvolo Riddle,_

 

_You are cordially invited to a celebration of the impending birth of my son at Holmes Manor at the full moon. And no, Riddle, I will not call you Lord Voldemort, so stop asking. I very dare you to make me, and your threats aren’t very threatening. A torturous death? Is that the best you can offer? Shame on you, Riddle, for thinking I’ll be quite so easy._

_You are permitted to bring one guest, who will be held to your account, meaning that if they attempt to break my anti-violence spell, you will be held to the same consequences._

_Write back to confirm your attendance and identify your guest, in full knowledge that refusal to attend means I will utterly humiliate you in high society and gift- not even sell, gift- the photo to dear Rita Skeeter._

_This time… hmm, I do believe this time will be the interview with your sixth-year girlfriend, the one you slept with and made the mistake of not checking for surveillance spells first. You see, Riddle, she wanted to have something to remember you by, and when you went publicly Dark, she came to me for protection. Told me everything. So come to my party and be as pleasant as you can manage, or the entire world will know exactly what the great and terrifying Dark Lord wears under his robes._

 

_Sincerely,_

_Violetta Agrippina Holmes_

_Lady of House Holmes_

 

_P.S.— I would be quite cross when you bring Bellatrix Lestrange if you do not make her behave, as she is no kind of role model for any child and my sweet Mycroft will be in attendance._

 

He balls up the letter, throwing it into the fire and nearly unseating Nagini from his lap.

_Know-it-all witch,_ he snarls to Nagini. _I won’t bring Bella, just to spite her._

_Then who?_

Riddle smiles. _You, of course._

 


	2. A Rather Awkward Party

 

“I don’t think Mummy understands the idea of a baby shower, do you?” Gaius asks his nephew, the seven-year-old perched on his lap with a massive book. 

Mycroft turns a page, settling deeper into Gaius’ arms without rumpling his child-sized suit, hair combed back and tamed by what can only be house-elf magic because not a single strand it out of place. Sherrinford keeps popping up to check that Master Mycroft has something to drink and occasionally bringing little plates of cake. He’s surrounded by a pile of presents, gifts brought to Mycroft and gifts left for Vi’s new baby boy because everybody who’s anybody knows that Violetta Holmes can’t be bribed. And everybody who’s anybody is exactly who was invited to this party. 

“Who gave you that?” Gaius asks, glancing down at the spell book in his lap. “Last I saw, Mummy was letting you work on the _Standard Book of Spells: Grade Five_.”

“Merlin did,” Mycroft tips his head back, meeting his eyes. “He says I have to take good care of it and give it back because it’s a copy of his original spell book and he doesn’t want it to be public.”

Gaius watches his nephew read, glancing at the illustrations and the translation in the margins. These aren’t spells the way he knows them, the way they all learn at Hogwarts. This is old magic, the kind that the most powerful of wizards and young children can use, the wild magic of their ancestors. 

“Stay here, Mycroft,” he tells him, hoisting the boy off his lap, “I need to go have a word with Merlin.”

“He said that you’d say that.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Uncle Gaius.”

Gaius harrumphs and goes to find an an ancient wizard who still looks to be not much more than a teenager, wading through a crowd that includes all the prominent members of both the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. 

In one parlor, Molly and Arthur Weasley corral their five sons with a sixth child on the way, a rambunctious crowd as opposed to the Blacks on the other side, Regulus stiffly formal between his parents while Sirius lounges in the corner glaring at him. He doesn’t want to know how they got stuck trying to do polite small-talk. 

He checks the next parlor, finding Lord Voldemort with his snake twining around his ankles in a Muggle suit that looks fresh off the runway instead of billowing robes, blinks twice to make sure he’s not seeing things, and then sees Vi in her trademark violet gown holding court by the fireplace, sending Lucius Malfoy to fetch glasses of water for her and Narcissa rather than call a house-elf. 

Aberforth and Albus Dumblebore, Albus in Muggle clothes like they’re all supposed to be, which looks incredibly odd with his beard, and Aberforth in Wizarding dress robes anyways because Vi blackmailed him to show up but not to dress up. 

Uther and Ygraine are ensconced in a court of their own, surrounded by people currying favor with the Minister and the people who helped him get elected over Cornelius Fudge. Uther and Ygraine are both dressed all in black, mourning Gorlois and Vivienne. The Death Eaters killed them in a raid on a suspected Order safehouse, snatching up Fabian and Gideon Prewett as well. Gaius was one of the Healers on the scene to treat the nonexistent survivors. 

He thought their daughter Morgana gone as well, until he arrived at Pendragon Manor with the bad news to find Morgana asking Ygraine when she could meet the baby in Ygraine’s belly. It was the one bright spot in a dark, dark day.

Until they had to tell her why she couldn’t go home, of course.

Uther used all of his not-inconsiderable power to hurry the adoption papers through that night and rewrote both his and Ygraine’s wills to include alternative plans for both Morgana and the unborn babe if he and Ygraine were to fall. He’s a hard man, but he has a good heart. Gaius has to believe that. 

Merlin is there, planting himself on Ygraine’s other side and conjuring up something to entertain Morgana. She glances up from Ygraine’s shoulder, watching, and eventually jumps off the sofa to see better from Merlin’s lap. Merlin meets his eyes, smiling sadly, and Gaius is the one who looks away first. 

Much as the ancient wizard looks like an irresponsible child, he is good with children. Gaius can see that much. He turns, pasting on a smile, to socialize with Vi’s guests. 

Well, to try, at least.

Merlin’s beard, is he ever glad that he refused the title of Lord Holmes.

 

***

 

“Who are you?”

Morgana settled in Merlin’s lap, adding little blue sparkles to Merlin’s constellation map with what magic she can muster. He twists his hand, rotating the map through the months, circling the constellations around for her and pointing them out quietly. 

“Merlin Emrys,” he says. He long ago gave up on trying to keep his identity at all secret. His legends are vague enough in the Muggle world, but the Wizarding world knows only too many details about it. 

“I’m Morgana.” She glances over at Uther and Ygraine. “Morgana Pendragon.”

“Morgana Pendragon. That is such a lovely name.”

Morgana curls against his chest, and Ygraine looks at him, puzzled.  Uther is distracted, not yet noticing that Morgana has stopped clinging to Ygraine. Magic calls to magic. It’s a simple reason, the basis of why the Wizarding community lives in, well, communities when it would be safer to spread out and hide within the Muggles. It’s why he could never stay away from Wizarding society, even in the Dark Times.

He avoids looking longingly at Ygraine’s belly. Nobody would understand that it isn’t Ygraine he’s looking at, it’s the faint magical signature of unborn Arthur. This is the time of uncomfortable trepidation when he knows Arthur is coming, that the Dark Times are almost over, and yet he knows Ygraine’s time is ticking to an end. A time of celebration and great tragedy. 

_How long, Kilgarrah?_

The Great Dragon replies, after a while, snorting before replying. _You know how you have to ask for that information._

Merlin sighs, regretting for the thousandth time the link based in blood and magic between him and Kilgarrah, the real reason why Kilgarrah was able to call for him so easily. The real basis of his Dragonlord abilities. 

_How long, my beloved father, greatest of all the Dragon Gods?_

_I’m the only Dragon God._

_Exactly._

Kilgarrah harrumphs in his head, the sound caught somewhere between the rumble of dragony irritation and a very human grumble. Merlin doesn’t like spending too much time with Kilgarrah now that he’s no longer bound in chains that kept him under Camelot and kept him from shifting between forms. He shifts too easily between dragon and human and Wandering God and Merlin can’t keep up. 

“Can you teach me to do that?” Morgana asks, poking his constellations. 

“When you get older, if Lord and Lady Pendragon will allow it. For now, just enjoy the show, my lady.” He starts connecting the constellations to show her the images, names scrawled by their side in his messy handwriting. With a frown, he changes it to Nicolas’ deliberate script for technical drawings, perfectly legible, and tells the stories behind them. 

_She’s a monster, Merlin, and the instrument of Arthur’s downfall._

Merlin frowns at Kilgarrah’s words. _She is only a monster half the time, and usually that because other people make it of her. She’s a child, a little girl who just lost her parents._

_And I suppose you have sympathy._

Merlin tenses, suppressing his frustration. They’ve had this argument before. _My mother is the only one of the people from my first lifetime who was important to me and yet never reincarnated. My father abandoned me as a child, manipulated me into my destiny, and continues to do both. Goodbye, Kilgarrah. I don’t want to hear any more from you right now._

“Will I ever be this good at magic?” Morgana asks, making a few stars appear above her hands. 

“You’ll be a brilliant witch,” he assures her. “I look forward to seeing you grow up.”

Morgana smiles, her eyes lighting up with delight. “I’m going to have a brother, you know. A little brother who I can protect, Auntie Ygraine says.”

“I’m sure you’ll do a brilliant job,” Merlin tells her solemnly. “You’re very prepared to be a big sister.”

 

***

 

Lord Voldemort was in his element.

At least, as much in his element as anyone could be at one of Violetta Holmes’ parties, where politeness is the enforced norm and she still manages to make everybody feel slightly inferior. He remembers when she was a first-year and he was starting the Knights of Walpurgis, just taking note of another pureblood from a prominent family, and yet she makes him feel like little orphan Tom, uncouth and untutored. 

Still, at least he found a modicum of drama in the finest suit Muggle money could buy, made especially for him for this very purpose of Violetta Holmes’ parties. It lacks the same presence as his trailing robes, as well as far less functional pockets. Sliding his wand from his sleeve, though admittedly quick, is far less impressive than drawing it from the inner pocket of his robes. 

_Why are we so far from the fire?_ Nagini asks wistfully, weaving her head towards the flames. Violetta herself is holding court there, and joining at this point would be tantamount to admitting weakness after she invited him over, but the other parlors have either Albus Dumbledore, the old fool, or _children_. Foul beasts, the lot of them. Perhaps once he controls Britain he’ll insist that they all be kept out of sight- certainly out of his sight- until they’ve reached an age where they can be respectful, quiet, and above all, not smell. 

“Riddle, a word,” Violetta demands, indicating the chair Malfoy sits in. Lucius vacates it, standing awkwardly for a moment before Violetta looks at her hand. “Water for your wife and I, Lucius, and wine for Tom.” 

He can see Lucius bite back a retort, then go to fetch it himself or at least leave the room before summoning one of Violetta’s notoriously recalcitrant house-elves. They obey her unconditionally, but not most other wizards. And who gives their house-elves names like Sherrinford or Algernon? 

He dreads ever finding out what horror she has planned for the new brat, with how she names house-elves and her son. Something truly awful, but at least the Holmes name provides some shelter. 

“To what do I owe the honor of your attention tonight, Violetta?” He sits, shifting the chair closer to the fire so Nagini can coil in his lap, satisfied. 

“The sanctity of the schools, Tommy dear. My Mycroft is only a few years away from starting at Hogwarts, and I would hate for his education to be at all disrupted by your,” she flicks her fingers disdainfully, “crusade. Leave it alone, and for that matter, leave all the wizarding schools alone. They are separate from the government for a reason, so keep the politics out.”

Voldemort takes another look at her, considering whether keeping his agenda free would be worth alienating Violetta Holmes. She’s neutral in this conflict, as in all conflicts, keeping herself isolated from either side. Were she to choose to work against him, though… she would not only bring the power of the Holmes name, her own magical ability, and her wealth in to play, but also the protection for her children. 

Wandering Gods, in all the mythology he read before discovering Horcruxes as a more manageable form of immortality, are notoriously protective of what’s theirs, including their half-mortal children. If the rumors are to be believed, both Violetta’s children were conceived with different Wandering Gods. 

He may be the most powerful Dark wizard ever, and he had a discussion with Grindelwald and his guards earlier to confirm it, but even he can’t take on legitimately immortal beings who have centuries of knowledge and practice over him. 

Not yet, at least.

“Of course, Violetta,” he agrees, giving her his best winning smile. “Hogwarts remains untouched.”

“Enjoy your wine, Riddle,” she says, accepting her glass and returning to conversation about pregnancy and toddlers with Narcissa Malfoy.

_Why so unsettled?_ Nagini asks.

_I suspect I’ve just been, to use the colloquialism, played_ he hisses quietly in return. Not that a Parseltongue whisper does much more to disguise his words than, say, using Parseltongue in the first place.

_The fire is nice and time will tell._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmm, this one fought back. Next chapter will bring us a few years forward.


	3. Three Trips to Platform 9 and 3/4

 

“Why does _Mycroft_ get to go?” Sherlock wails, releasing Violetta’s leg in preference of throwing himself into the nearest column on the platform. Arthur and Morgana, here to watch Mycroft go in preparation for Morgana’s departure in a few years but mostly because Merlin’s drawn babysitting duty, stare because Uther isn’t here to tell them not to. He is, as always, a stickler about appearances, which now means less about the Code of Chivalry and more about what makes a proper pureblooded witch or wizard. 

He disapproves of Merlin, in that regard, but when his closest friend-slash-personal physician manages to somehow get the renowned sorcerer Merlin to babysit, even Uther can’t complain too much. Merlin’s the only one allowed to take both Morgana and Arthur out in public without a full escort, and only that because he sets up a magic field that fizzles all cameras pointed at them. And the whole wandless, wordless magic bit, which it is _finally_ nice to get a little recognition from Uther for. 

Well, in addition to the shame and derision. For all your much vaunted magic, Merlin, you can’t even manage to keep Morgana’s dress clean or change Arthur’s diaper, can you? What use are you then, Merlin? Morgana scraped her knee? Why isn’t it healed already and her tears dried with a cloth so soft it makes the Fae weep for joy, Merlin? Uther, master of the rule ‘it’s a learning experience, get over it’, seems to believe in this life that every misfortune that befalls either one of his children is completely and utterly Merlin’s fault for not preventing.

And with Sherlock in the mix, that’s a lot of mishaps.

Merlin always appreciated Hunith for everything she did for him, but not nearly as much as he does now. She raised a half-immortal child in a realm where his magic was taboo and also something that he couldn’t live without, couldn’t control, and certainly couldn’t hide well. Especially not as a child, without the reasoning skills to know that he had to and why. Mycroft’s abilities are turned internally, and with his self-control, he’s always been better at playing normal. 

Sherlock, though. He is the closest to what Merlin was like as a child, except with wildly different abilities. As far as Merlin can tell, ghosts can’t hide from the boy, and he can read the imprints lingering on objects without any kind of spell to aid him. He wailed whenever brought close to Ygraine as Arthur’s due date grew near, and every once in a while, Merlin catches him looking askance at someone whose obituary is never long to follow. Merlin can’t see it, but Sherlock sets off all his magic detectors simply by being in the same building. 

He spends a lot of time babysitting Sherlock and cleaning up the messes that his tantrums make. 

He almost prefers babysitting Arthur and Morgana. Arthur is only slightly less prattish as a four-year-old than he is in their teenage years and early twenties,  but at least Morgana is a perfect lady. Much as Merlin tries to tell her that Pendragon Manor is her home, she doesn’t have to prove anything to stay there, she still tries to please Uther as not to lose her home. The only home she remembers, in truth. She’s a sweet girl, but she could be so much _more_ , and if that doesn’t describe Morgana in every incarnation he’s known her, he doesn’t know what will. 

He wants to see Morgana with all the kindness of when she isn’t betrayed by her family and all the confidence of the sorceress, but this time, he wants to nurture it in her. He’s never here this early, never called back and drawn into their lives from the very beginning. It’s very, very good and yet so incredibly weird.

Especially since they always want to hear the legends from his first lifetime, and telling them the story of their own lives is awkward, so he keeps refusing and he can’t tell them why.

“Stop making a scene, Sherlock,” Morgana tells him. “We all get to go, but Mycroft is the eldest. He gets to go first.”

“Well it isn’t fair,” Sherlock insists, standing up off the wall to argue with Morgana. At seven, she has a definite height advantage, but Sherlock draws himself up to every inch of his not-considerable height and puts his hands on his hips. 

“It’s exactly fair,” she tells him, getting that big sister look that says they are all incompetent fools and only she knows better. Morgana idolized Mycroft, and because of that decided that if she could be big sister to one little boy, she could be the big sister to two. 

Sherlock apparently decides that is enough, retreating to sulk instead. Mycroft gives Sherlock, Morgana, and Arthur precise hugs, wrapping his arms around them for precisely five seconds before stepping back.Violetta gets a slightly longer hug, eight seconds tops, and Merlin would have gotten a handshake if his hands weren’t both occupied. Mycroft settles for a nod instead.

And then, all too soon, Mycroft is on the train with another one of Merlin’s spell books for company, and the Hogwarts Express pulls out from the station. Violetta sweeps Sherlock up in her arms and Merlin follows behind her with Arthur and Morgana, and they are safely ensconced in Holmes Manor again before he knows it.

Merlin looks over at where Mycroft always sits to share a comment, and it is empty.

Violetta seems unperturbed, as always, but Merlin already misses the boy deeply.

“Come here, you two,” he tells Sherlock and Arthur, tapping his lap, “let me tell you about the Italian Renaissance. I was there, you know. Very driven fellows, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.”

 

***

 

Sherlock adjusts to Mycroft’s absence, though he is far more distant from his brother now and far more impatient with Arthur. Sherlock and Arthur both adore Morgana and threaten anyone who even shows the slightest sign of upsetting her, but they’ve never liked each other and they don’t seem inclined to start. 

Morgana does her school shopping for her first year with Violetta and Uther, leaving Merlin in charge of Sherlock and Mycroft and pretending it’s for ‘birthday shopping’ so neither boy will want to come along. That year, Mycroft is a fifth-year and a perfectly respectable Ravenclaw prefect, destined to be Head Boy someday. 

It is a slightly larger affair that year, with Merlin still in charge of Sherlock and Arthur, threatening to put magical leashes on them should they misbehave or even worse, hold their hands, but with both Uther and Violetta in attendance. Arthur helps Morgana with her luggage and then helps a few other first-years, the charming eight-almost-nine-year-old, smiling and kind to everyone but Sherlock. In Arthur’s defense, Sherlock did sort of deserve it for dying all of Arthur’s shirts pink but for a single ancient one that was a gift from someone-or-the-other and covered in lace. 

It is a sad testament to Merlin’s life these last almost-nine years that he didn’t doubt the veracity of Arthur’s claim in the least. Not that it would’ve mattered. Sherlock didn’t try to cover it up. On the contrary, he seemed rather proud of it, and gave Merlin a horribly betrayed look when he chastised him instead. One instance of praising him for harnessing his wild magic, the old magic that runs as strongly in his veins as it does in Merlin’s, and Sherlock thinks he approves of all his pranks.

Not that he’s adverse to Arthur getting knocked down a peg or two, occasionally. Sherlock’s saving him from a lot of work later on. Hopefully. The more Sherlock presses Arthur’s resolve, the stronger it becomes, and Merlin fears Arthur is destined to be a pain no matter what. 

“Have a lovely year, Morgana,” Arthur tells his sister, giving her a careful hug as not to muss her hair or the outfit he knows she spent a week picking. 

“Go away, Mycroft,” Sherlock snaps. “The Hogwarts house-elves are certainly dreading your return. They’ve probably been stocking up on cake all summer.”

“Jealousy ill-befits you, brother mine.”

“As your waistline does you,” Sherlock hisses, whipping around and trying to stalk away. He yanks his hand from Merlin’s to do so, getting all of eleven steps away before Merlin’s magic snaps into effect and stops him. Sherlock’s magic stirs, and Merlin tightens his hold. 

_What did I do in my previous life to deserve this, Kilgarrah?_

Unsurprisingly, Kilgarrah doesn’t respond. He never does, not with that question. Surprising, since the Dragon likes to talk, but there it is. Merlin doesn’t question it, not after so many years. Decades. Centuries— Merlin’s beard, he feels old. Arthur always makes him feel old until he starts dragging him along on adventures again. 

“Sherlock Holmes,” Violetta clips out, and Sherlock immediately stops pushing against Merlin’s bounds with a glare that says there will be destruction later. Mycroft, once again, gives each of them except Morgana a precisely timed hug. Morgana gives Merlin and Arthur quick hugs, holding on to Uther and Violetta for longer, before allowing Mycroft to escort her on to the train.

“She’ll be fine, Uther,” Violetta assures him. “Morgana’s a clever girl and Mycroft won’t let her come to any harm.”

“I’m still installing a contingent of the Knights in Hogsmeade.”

“And very right to do so. I would just like to ask, Uther, that you keep them out of the school unless she asks otherwise. She stifles under the responsibilities of your position. Give her some freedom.” Violetta and Uther lead them to the limousine Uther called for the occasion, one of the Muggleborn Knights in the driver’s seat. 

Life goes on, he considers, irritating half-immortal wizard children and the return of his self-righteous and prattish King aside. 

He hasn’t been this alive in years.

 

***

 

“The Knights will be in Hogsmeade, and removing your ring will alert them to your distress. Morgana, of course, will be there as well.” Uther holds Arthur at arm’s length, inspecting his son in a chunky fisherman’s sweater and tailored slacks that is so modern Arthur, even at the tender age of eleven. He’s terribly young, but already looking like a miniature version of himself, confident and self-assured. Arthur gives his father as much of a level stare as he can, at quite a bit shorter than Uther is. 

“You will behave yourself, Sherlock Holmes, because I am not afraid of sending Howlers after you and they will be absolutely _filled_ with embarrassing secrets of yours.” Violetta, swathed in an amethyst dress and a silver-and-violet cloak, holds Sherlock close to her to hiss some more warnings in his ear. He tolerates it for a while, then pulls away just in time for Mycroft to tap his umbrella in irritation and grab Sherlock by the elbow for what Merlin assumes is more of the same. 

“Thank you for the advice, _Mycroft_ , but I’m certain the entire castle will rejoice over our newfound ability to have cake at dinner while the Ministry mourns their sudden lack of such. Now _let me go_.” Sherlock, slightly taller than Arthur, is also a tiny adult in a black suit with a shirt as brilliantly violet as Violetta’s cloak, his Hogwarts robes less of neatly folded and more of tossed over his arm until he’s ready for them. 

“Come along, you two,” Morgana instructs, her emerald green dress matching the green silk inside of her Hogwarts robes. She’s the Queen of Slytherin House, using all of Mycroft’s political tricks and her own charisma to keep her entire House behind her as a fourth-year. Sherlock idolizes her and Arthur threatens anyone who he even thinks makes her uncomfortable. 

It saddens him, a little bit, to see the boys follow Morgana away from him. He’s been their primary caretaker for their whole lives, with Uther busy being the Minister and Violetta busy terrifying the upper echelon of Wizarding society and knowing a little more than anyone’s comfortable with. Time to go visit Nicolas and Perenelle, he thinks. Take a break from it all before the next time one of the boys- Sherlock, he shouldn’t fool himself, it’ll be Sherlock- causes enough drama to warrant his return. 

With a _crack_ , he Apparates away, letting himself through the wards in Pendragon Manor to use Uther’s Floo. The ancient wards woven into the other Manors can keep him out, at least without a little effort, but he wove the Pendragon wards himself. Eternal exception. 

He snaps and the fireplace leaps into flames, delighted not to have to pretend to need his wand to do so, and levitates a pinch of Floo powder. The flames flare green, the particular color that he never sees outside of magic. 

“Palazzo del Flamel, Italy,” he enunciates, and steps into the flames.


	4. The Sorting Hat's Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't help but post again so quickly- I've been so looking forwards to this chapter. You wouldn't even believe how much I've been looking forwards to it.

 

Thanks to Morgana’s meddling, Arthur and Sherlock end up in the same boat across the lake, accompanied by a tiny brunette with a stack of books who barely managed to squeak out her name under Arthur’s coaxing and Sherlock’s glaring. Molly Hooper buried her nose in her books instead of speaking to either of them, leaving them drifting across the lake in a charged silence pretending to listen to the waves instead of speaking to each other. 

Sherlock, for one, is relieved when they arrive at the castle and he can separate himself from Arthur, _finally_. He’s so sick of righteous Arthur with his Knights, all of whom are already at Hogwarts, and his attitude. Always so holier-than-thou. 

Good thing there’s no doubt in Sherlock’s mind that they’ll end up in different Houses and he won’t have to deal with Arthur any longer.

 

***

 

“Hermione Granger.”

Professor McGonagall- _Transfiguration Master, the Headmaster’s second-in-command_ \- reads out her name, and she wasn’t quite ready for it yet. She knew it was coming, of course, alphabetical order and all that, but now it’s real. Professor McGonagall is holding the Sorting Hat above the stool, waiting for her, and somehow _this_ is more real than Diagon Alley or the magic display for her parents or even Platform 9 and 3/4 or Hogwarts itself. 

This is the moment. 

She steps forwards, not daring to look to either side in the hushed silence of the Great Hall, and turns on her heel to sit down. Professor McGonagall sets the Hat on her head, and she waits. 

_Ooh, you’re my first fun one. Miss Hermione Granger. You’re destined for big things, young lady, but where to put you? Clever, yes, and bookish, but not quite Ravenclaw material, not you, Miss Granger. No, you’re a fighter, and I know just where to put you. Better be_ “GRYFFINDOR!”

Hermione stands up when Professor McGonagall removes the Hat, leaving her with a final _Best of luck, dear Hermione Granger_ before returning to its mostly inert state. The Gryffindor table is roaring and cheering, and the boys that must be Ron Weasley from the Express’ brothers pat the bench next to them for her to join them. 

Hermione flounces over, the enchanted fabric on the inside of her robes turning scarlet and the Gryffindor lion crest appearing on the front, and takes her seat. 

“Hermione, was it?” One of the twins asks. “I’m Gred and this is Forge.”

“No, no, that’s not right,” the other one says. “What was it again?”

Hermione giggles, and they laugh. “Welcome home, Hermione Granger.”

 

***

 

“Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock steps forwards before McGonagall finishes reading off his name. Mummy had him memorize the names of all of the students in his year before getting on the Express, along with which ones Mummy thinks would make good allies. He alphabetized them for simplicity’s sake. At the High Table, some of the teachers watch him with avid interest. Sherlock makes note of them, too. Those would be the ones who Mummy has been blackmailing, then, although he wouldn’t put it past Mycroft to be meddling, too. 

He executes a precise half-turn and sits in the same fluid motion, waiting for McGonagall. The Hat drops onto his head, and he doesn’t wait for it to make it’s first statements.

_Yes, hello. I have a fully worked-out rationale as to why you should put me in the House I desire. Firstly—_

_Much as I’m certain I would love to hear it, Sherlock, I know exactly where you should be. It is a lovely argument, though. You’ll have to come visit me in the Headmaster’s Office someday to explain it all._

Sherlock frowns, irritated. He spent some time- not a lot of time, but enough, on his argument- and dislikes it being ignored.

_You had best put me in the proper House, then. I will tolerate no less._

_I will, I will. It had best be_ “SLYTHERIN!”

_You shall survive to see another year, Hat._

_See you later, Holmes._

Sherlock’s robes shift as he strides straight to Morgana, ignoring the rest of his new House for her perfumed hug and a place of honor at her right hand. 

“We’ve been waiting, Sherlock. So kind of you to finally join us.”

“As soon as I could, Lady Morgana.”

She wraps her arms around him, her perfume sinking into his robes, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Pay attention, Sherlock. I’d like you to meet a few people.”

 

***

 

“Molly Hooper.”

Molly walks up to the stool with her head down and a book in arms, genuinely hating the publicity of the Sorting. Ever since Dad’s death went public, drawing her into a media frenzy because of the malfunctioning curse that eventually killed him, she’s hated anything like this. He worked on experimental curses deep inside the Ministry, so he told Molly he wasn’t terribly surprised, but the Prophet ran an article and Mom took her and escaped to the Muggle world to get away from the fallout. 

Even still, some reporter or another or some Ministry inquisition into safety regulations tracked them down until Mom stopped using magic entirely, living with Grandma and Grandpa until she could get a Muggle job. It was hard, learning to live without magic, and it’ll be harder still to learn to live with it again. 

She sits down before she can have second thoughts, not that they’d do any good, and waits for the Hat.

_Brought a book, did you? Best way to pass the time, if you ask me. The Headmaster reads to me sometimes, but it’s always dry and boring correspondence._

_I like books. They’re easier than people._

_And I thank you for being so easy to Sort, Miss Molly Hooper. Come visit me, tell me about your books. Even your studies are due to be far more interesting than the Headmaster’s correspondence._

_I promise I will._

_I look forwards to seeing you, Miss Molly Hooper. Now, let me put you in_ “RAVENCLAW!”

Molly smiles at the Hat and jerks a nervous nod at Professor McGonagall, joining the blue-and-bronze of the Ravenclaw table. A boy with slicked-back black hair and dark eyes smiles at her, reading the cover of her book. 

“That’s a wonderful book. If you like, there’s a few others like it in the Library. I could show you, maybe? I’m Jim.”

 

***

 

“Gregory Lestrade.”

Greg winces. His turn, looks like. If he isn’t in Gryffindor, Sally’s going to make fun of him so much. Just because she’s a few months older than him and got to come to Hogwarts last year, despite the fact that they both grew up over shops in Diagon Alley and have spent their entire lives chasing down pickpockets and helping old ladies across the street and even securing the scene at the break-in two years ago before the Aurors could get there.

They will be Aurors one day, Greg’s sure of that, and he can’t wait to have some stories of his own to match Sally’s tales of adventures at Hogwarts. Mum and Mrs. Donovan promised them care packages, and if he and Sally are in the same house they’ll be able to swap goodies for the things that Mrs. Donovan forgets he likes and Sally doesn’t and vice versa with Mum. 

He smiles and nods at Professor McGonagall, who looks pointedly from the Hat in her hand to the stool. He flushes red and then sits, Professor McGonagall placing the Hat on his head with a little more force than necessary.

_If it isn’t a man with a plan. Tell me, Greg, what is that plan?_

_I thought you could read minds?_

_Oh, I can, I can,_ the Hat laughs in his head, _but it’s more fun this way. Go on, tell the Hat._

_Sally and I are going to be Aurors. Do the right thing and protect people._

_A good plan. For that, I think you belong in_ “GRYFFINDOR!”

The Gryffindors cheer as he heads towards them, Sally jumping off her bench to cheer wildly, yanking two boys who must be her friends Phillip and Leon up off the bench to cheer with her. She makes a space for him in the middle of the second-years, right by her side.

“This is Phillip Anderson, Greg, and Leon Red. Leon’s been in training his whole life to be one of the Knights, the Minister’s personal bodyguards. Isn’t that exciting?”

“Exactly as exciting as the fourteen times you told me about it this summer, Sally,” he says, giving his best smile to both Phillip and Leon. “Nice to meet you both. Now, when do we get to eat?”

 

***

 

“Draco Malfoy.”

Draco saunters up to the Sorting Hat with complete and utter confidence about where he’s going. His family has always been in Slytherin, and he will be no exception. 

The Hat barely touches his head before it shouts “SLYTHERIN!”

Which is as it should be. He wouldn’t accept anything else, and there is no argument to be had. If the Hat is as good as everyone claims it is, it should have seen that and just given him what he wanted. 

After all, that’s what everyone does.

“Crabbe, Goyle,” he says, sliding in between them and pointedly not speaking to Holmes, who is perfectly happy to ignore him in return. 

“Greet the Lady Morgana,” one of the second-years hisses.

“It is my pleasure to join your House, Lady Morgana,” he replies dutifully, chin high and summoning up all of Mother’s lessons on proper decorum.

“A pleasure indeed,” she replies cryptically, tapping long painted nails on the table in front of her. “Now, pay attention, everyone. It’s Arthur’s turn, and we must be respectful.”

 

***

 

“Arthur Pendragon.”

Arthur steps forward, taking one look at Morgana at the Slytherin table, trying to ignore the whispers. It doesn’t work very well, not with what feels like the entire Great Hall talking about him. Not just looking, he’s used to looking, but judging without letting him prove anything. 

He’s the Minister’s son, but that isn’t all of his identity. 

When the Hat is set on his head, he meets Morgana’s eyes and gets her approving nod, hidden by her minions so that only Sherlock could possibly notice, but much as Sherlock dislikes Arthur- the feeling is mutual- he does have faith that Sherlock will not betray Morgana’s confidences. 

_Loyalty and honor. It is, as always, a pleasure to see you, Arthur._

_You’ve never met me before._

_Not you, exactly, but you. It makes sense, if you’re a telepathic Hat who sees someone’s true character._

Arthur ignores the Hat, hoping that it will get down to business.

_Fine. You’re always that way. I ought to be used to it, but then I get spoilt by your lovely companions and forget what an awful prat you are._

_I don’t think the Sorting Hat is supposed to be rude. Don’t you have a job to do?_

_Fine, have it your way, Your Royal Obnoxiousness. It was never a challenge, you know. You’re always a_ “GRYFFINDOR!”

Gryffindor is one their feet cheering, but none of the other Houses look particularly surprised. Morgana smiles, her affection hidden by her minions and the Hufflepuff table’s polite cheering, and Arthur heads over to the Gryffindors to sit next to… Granger. Hermione Granger. That was her name.

He gives her his best smile, the one Father had him practice in the mirror a thousand times and in front of house-elves with cameras a thousand more. “Hermione, was it? It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Arthur Pendragon.”

 

***

 

“Harry Potter.”

Dead silence.

Harry glances from side to side, and everybody is watching. Ron gives him a little push forwards as Professor McGonagall clears her throat and stares at him. Harry takes the few steps up to the Sorting Hat, half-falling on to the stool and trying not to feel completely self-conscious in his robes and oversized clothes that used to belong to Dudley. At least everyone is staring at his scar, not his clothes. 

Right?

He hopes that’s right. 

Harry wishes he could see Hagrid, with Ron and Hermione lost in the sea of robes and faces.

_I’ve been waiting for you, my boy. Harry Potter. Everybody’s quite in an uproar about you now that you’re back home._

_Back home?_

_A story for another day, and not one for me to tell. You’re quite a puzzle, Harry. All this potential, but where best to develop it? Not Ravenclaw, you’re more of the active type, and not a Hufflepuff either, for the same reason._

_Not Slytherin,_ Harry thinks as strongly as he can. _Please, not Slytherin. Never Slytherin._

_You would do so well there, nurtured by ambition and the possibilities of so much._

_No, not Slytherin. Put me anywhere else, but it can’t be Slytherin._

_Fine. If you insist on such, then it ought to be_ “GRYFFINDOR!”

The scarlet-and-gold table erupts into cheering while half the Slytherins scoff and turn away. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw look faintly disappointed, but cheer politely anyways. Professor McGonagall takes the Hat off his head, and he stumbles to his feet and heads to the Gryffindor table. Ron’s brothers pull him down between them, introducing him to everyone. 

Percy, Gryffindor prefect and the eldest Weasley still at Hogwarts. 

Fred and George- they keep trying to convince the first-years that it is Gred and Forge, but Harry’s memory isn’t poor enough for him to forget the twins on the Platform. 

Hermione he knew, still nervous and still high-strung. 

Arthur Pendragon, who nobody seems to be able to name without both his first and last name, who is stiffly formal yet utterly charming to everyone around him. He seems a little false to Harry, but who is he to judge? Everybody in the Wizarding world seems to be a little… overbearing, at least when it comes to him. 

“We’re delighted to have you, Harry,” Percy tells him. “You’ll love it here in Gryffindor.”

 

***

 

“John Watson.”

_Soldier up, John._ He takes a deep breath, squeezes his fist tight, and then releases it in time with stepping forwards to the stool up front. To the talking hat. Blimey. Harry’s never going to believe this. 

For that matter, nobody is. At least he can tell Harry without sounding completely crazy, once she gets over the fact that they’re twins and yet he gets to come here and she’s still at home. She’ll forgive him eventually, once he actually learns some sort of color-changing spell to do her hair for her. He promised, and John Watson always keeps his promises.

He sits on the stool and waits to be Sorted by the talking hat.

_John Watson. Loyal John Watson who cares about people so much. You could do well in a few places, but there’s one big question. Which drives John Watson? Are you loyal and brave, or are you kind and caring? What did you grow up wanting to be, John? Healer or Auror? Soldier or Doctor?_

_I don’t know what an Auror is, but I wanted to be a doctor. Before all this happened._

_And a fine doctor or a fine Healer shall you be, and the best place to get you there is_ “HUFFLEPUFF!”

 

***

 

“Ron Weasley.”

He has to be a Gryffindor. Fred and George will never let him live it down if he isn’t a Gryffindor, and if- Merlin’s toenails, if he ends up a Slytherin?- Mum and Dad will be so disappointed. 

He hurries to the Sorting Hat to get it all over with.

_Another Weasley?_

_Gryffindor, please Gryffindor, it has to be Gryffindor._

_Well, I know just what to do with you. Better be_ “GRYFFINDOR!”

Ron breathes a sigh of relief, slipping in between George and Harry Potter, getting a clap on the back from Fred from the other side of George. Percy smiles approvingly, and much as he’s a bit of a git sometimes and he sings in the shower, Ron smiles back at him. 

Gryffindor, at last. 

He’s waited for this day for so long.

“I’m starving!” he complains to Harry. “These last couple Sortings can’t happen fast enough!”

Harry grins. “Is it that good? Nobody’s been able to talk about anything but the feast.”

“You thought the sweets on the train were good? Just wait, Harry. You’ll never believe this. It’s going to be amazing.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first few weeks at Hogwarts: courtesy of Greg, Molly, and Morgana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be switching around perspectives so you don't get everyone's story all the time, but hopefully you'll see quite a bit of everyone. 
> 
> In other notes, Molly is practically writing herself and I have such plans for her.

 

“Come _on_ , Greg, it’s almost like you haven’t grown up on broomsticks in Diagon Alley. Races through the Alley, hanging decorations, all that stuff? Have you forgotten than we did that?”

“Enough of that, Sally!” Greg wobbles on his broom, reaching a little too far to grab the football Phillip keeps in his trunk for when they can’t get a Quaffle from Madam Hooch. It’s slippery and really not meant for tossing around on a damp day like today, but the weather is the only reason they were able to get Madam Hooch to let them use the Quidditch pitch. 

“Hey, at least I’m more than a foot above the ground. That’s better than John.” 

He brought John out today, thinking he could use a little fun. Greg got lost in the castle in his second week trying to find Professor Flitwick’s office while the staircases moved on him, finally getting scooped up by Professor Hudson. The Alchemy professor, he’s now learned, is notorious for picking up stray students and feeding them tea and biscuits until they keep coming back.

He has. Professor Hudson, who insists on being called Mrs. Hudson when outside of class, holds tea for her little family of stray students every Thursday after her seventh-year Alchemy class. Greg hasn’t missed Thursday Tea since then. That’s where he met John, who got separated from his classmates while talking to the portrait of one of the founders of St. Mungo’s, walking from frame to frame until the other Hufflepuffs taped a note asking someone to return him to the Great Hall to his back and left him. 

He’s a good guy, would have done well in Gryffindor, but Greg has to have faith in the Sorting Hat’s reasons. Seems a bit lonely, so Greg invited him out today, completely forgetting that John’s Muggleborn and his only time on a broom was Madam Hooch’s lessons. 

Greg flings the football at Phillip, making him twist to catch it without falling off his broom, and swings down to check on John.

“Alright there, mate?”

“I’m on a flying broomstick at wizard school with a bunch of people who don’t even know what a telly is, much less who the Prime Minister is. Of course I’m alright.” John looks at Greg crossly, then bursts into laughter and wraps his arms around his broom to avoid falling the foot to the ground. 

“We do too know who the Minister is,” Greg argues, because he feels like he’s been insulted somewhere in there. “Uther Pendragon is the Minister. You know Arthur, Gryffindor in our year? His dad.”

“The _Prime_ Minister, not the Minister of _Magic_.”

“The what Minister?”

“Proving my point here, Greg.”

“Well, you still can’t fly a broom, and that’s a shame. Come on, John, another six inches off the ground won’t hurt you. These brooms are slow, they’re meant to be safe for new students to use.” Greg rises up the few inches himself, trying to prove his point. John stubbornly hovers exactly where he is. 

“And how do you know that?” 

Greg rolls his eyes. “Sally’s parents own Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley. When Hogwarts buys used brooms for use as novice brooms, they bring them to Sally’s mum for re-enchanting to limit their speed and boost the safety measures. Sally’s mum is amazing with brooms, even added a charm to our brooms as kids that didn’t let us stray too far from the shops.”

It’s completely safe. Mrs. Donovan’s enchantments never fail. Greg and Sally know how to get around the speed restrictions, but she weaves the safety enchantments into the very material of the broom so that they won’t fail unless the broom is completely compromised. John’s broom is a little battered, like all the novice brooms, but Madam Hooch takes good care of her equipment. 

“Because you telling me that there’s an enchantment on my flying broomstick preventing me from falling off and dying is enough to make me trust it. Next thing, you’ll tell me it’s like Peter Pan and I need to believe to fly.”

Greg looks at John, puzzled. “I don’t know about this Peter Pan character, but clearly it isn’t true. You’re flying right now,” he glances down, “just not very high.”

“And that’s the way it’s going to stay.” John lifts one hand off his broom to yank his yellow-and-black scarf tighter, and Greg knows when he’s lost. He shrugs, returning to the game just in time to intercept Leon’s toss to Phillip and pelt it towards Sally. He catches her by surprise, clipping Sally’s arm, and she yelps as she dives to retrieve the ball before it hits the ground. 

“You’re a right git, Gregory!” she calls over her shoulder.

“You know it!” he shouts back.

“Alright, off the field,” Madam Hooch calls from the ground, blowing her whistle to get their attention. “Storm’s coming and I won’t have students out on brooms in it.”

 

***

 

“Now, does anybody know why we start learning protective magic before we do anything else?”

All of the first-years look slightly confused. Molly glances around the room, at the Slytherins pointedly pretending not to have noticed the question and her fellow Ravenclaws frowning at the chapter they were supposed to read before class today as if it ought to contain all the answers in the world and it doesn’t. When nobody answers and Professor Flitwick doesn’t move on, she raises her hand. 

“Miss Hooper.”

“Because… because if poorly cast, any spell can be dangerous, and we don’t yet know enough to cast them right.”

“Exactly correct, Miss Hooper. Now, before next class, I would like an essay from each one of you on the proper casting technique and the limitations of one of the protective charms in Chapter Three. Let’s make it… twelve inches, adjusted for handwriting size, and I will be checking.” Professor Flitwick claps his hands, dismissing them. 

Molly gathers her supplies, tucking them into the appropriate places in her bag. Mom helped her sew pockets in her bag so everything has a proper place, better to keep her quills from breaking or her ink bottle from spilling over her parchment. She’s always last out of the classroom, but she doesn’t mind it, not really. Her and the books, the way it’s always been. 

Ravenclaw Tower is good for that. They have so many reading nooks where she can tuck herself away with a floating lap desk, her homework, and a few extra books just to keep her in that lovely place with the burble of her classmates just on the other side of the curtain, muted but never eradicated, while she loses herself in someone else’s world for a little bit.

“Who did you lose?”

Molly whips around to see one of the Slytherins behind her, tall for their age with wild raven curls and eyes that see a little too much. His robes are open, revealing a dark suit, the black broken only by his Slytherin tie. 

“Is that even school uniform?”

Molly covers her mouth. She can’t believe she actually said that. That was so incredibly out of line that she can’t even believe herself. The boy raises an eyebrow, holding the awkward silence out for a while longer before he sighs and raises a hand. She blinks for no apparent reason, and he’s in the standard black sweater, white shirt, and Slytherin tie. 

“Glamour spell. The teachers just need to see that I’m in uniform, I don’t actually need to be.” He flicks his fingers in a shooing motion, and his previous clothes re-assert themselves. 

She pinpoints what is wrong. “You didn’t use your wand.”

He slides it out of the inside pocket of his robes, inspecting it like she’s seen some of the Muggleborns do when they don’t know what to do with it. He flicks it at one of the feathers left over from learning Wingardium Leviosa, whispering the spell, and it bursts into flame as it rises. He looks over at her as if to say _see?_ and he shrugs. 

“Lots of people explode their feathers. We’re first-years.”

“Perfectly rational, and I applaud you for that, but you’re missing one crucial piece of information.” He puts his wand away and lifts his hand, and the feather rises with each twitch of his fingers. 

“A wand is a witch or wizard’s conduit from their own power to the action they wish to take. Wandless magic is even harder and more unpredictable than wordless magic. It’s in all the books.” She steps away abruptly. “I don’t need the explanation. I’m sorry. Have a good day.”

Molly leaves the strange boy and heads straight for the library. Madam Pince bustles over when she sets the three books she had checked out on her desk, checking them for damage manually while they check themselves in. They’re pristine, and Madam Pince gives Molly a rare smile for keeping her books in such good condition. 

“Lovely, lovely. What may I help you with, Miss Hooper?”

“Do you have any books on the origins of magic? Particularly wandlore, if you have it.”

Madam Pince waves her wand and books fly off the shelves, narrowly missing other students and stacking themselves into several piles on her desk. Madam Pince reads the spines, frowning, and banishes a few of them back to their places.

“You want theory, not practice, yes? Yes, of course you do, Molly dear. Now, these are a little above a first-year, so I’ll send you with these ones first. Come back for the others if you need to.” Madam Pince hands her a stack of five books, tapping them with her wand to lighten them in Molly’s arms. Molly learned quickly that Madam Pince has a soft spot for Ravenclaws, so many of them with their thirst for obscure knowledge, and she loves people who take care of her books. 

“Thank you, Madam Pince.”

“Go on, before all the good reading spots are gone.” Madam Pince shoos her towards the door. “Tea tomorrow, Molly Hooper. Tell Miss Adler, the fifth-year prefect, that I’ve invited you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Molly says, smiling her entire way back to Ravenclaw Tower. 

 

***

 

Morgana has always enjoyed the Slytherin Common Room. There is something quintessentially magic about it, the same tinge of old magic that threads through the entire castle but stronger. The same old magic that runs in Merlin’s veins, that runs in Mycroft and Sherlock’s, the old magic born of the Wandering Gods and their direct descendants. 

She’s one of the unexplained ones, the ones with old magic who don’t have a Wandering God ancestor close enough to explain it. A throwback, rare and yet infinitely more common among the old bloodlines, the ones that are still pure. 

The green glow of the afternoon sun shining through the Black Lake into the Common Room waves through the glass, magnifying the imperfections across the smooth black stone of the floors, washes over her like the thrumming of her unrestrained magic. It makes her aware of every detail of her surroundings in a hazy sort of way where she notes them, but is not conscious of them until she forces herself to focus. 

The Common Room is always cool, but the floors are always warm, kept so by house-elf magic spreading the warmth of the castle piping. Her heels are set to the side, letting Morgana bury her toes in the rug in the middle of the couches, right in front of the fireplace, and she relaxes into the black leather couch, tossing the big green-and-silver pillows to the rug. The leather is in beautiful condition, thanks to house-elf magic, but softened by years of Slytherins sitting here. 

Morgana picks up a piece of glass, running her thumbs over the twists and smooth curves and focusing until it warms and starts to move independent of her hands. She’s always been drawn to the artistry of this type of creation. Everybody else ought to be in the Great Hall for dinner, giving her a modicum of privacy to drop her facade and just work her fledgling old magic.

She feels Sherlock’s approach before he ever makes a sound. Tapped in to her magic like this, he is wreathed in old magic, invisible to her eyes but tangible. She ignores him, letting him fold down into the couch at her side, the chill of his magic sinking into her skin.

They sit there in silence until she’s finished forming her piece of glass. 

“Sherlock.”

“Morgana.”

“Why aren’t you at dinner, Sherlock?”

“In case you forgot, Morgana, your little brother is up in Gryffindor Tower. Go harass him about dinner.” 

Morgana leans back, giving him the _look_ she perfected from Mycroft when Arthur and Sherlock were four. “I have a signed contract with your brother transferring Older Sibling authority over you to me until such time as either I am graduated from Hogwarts or you are no longer on the school grounds, a term which is loosely extended to include Hogsmeade and all events during your school years at which Mycroft is unable to be present.”

“I’m going to poison his cake,” Sherlock growls.

“In benefits added to the contract for the sake of negotiations, Mycroft promises to send me items I can’t obtain at Hogwarts and the newest fashions as according to my letters so long as I prevent you from poisoning or otherwise tampering with his food, desserts inclusive.”

Sherlock stands in a huff, stalking off to the boy’s dormitory with all of the dignity an angry eleven-year-old can manage. Morgana smiles. She loves her little brothers, but they are so easy to rile and it is _wonderful_. 


	6. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, Arthur, and Sherlock.

 

_Dear Harry,_

 

_It’s been two months, a whole eight weeks, since I left for Hogwarts and I’m really hoping that you’ve forgiven me by now. Before this, the longest you’ve stayed mad at me was two weeks, three if you count that time I cut an inch off your hair and then you went to camp for a week while still angry, but I don’t count that one._

_Greg and Sally- they’re some of my new friends, I’ll tell you more about them later- say that I can learn to use a color-changing spell for your hair, but it would be unpredictable and wear off sooner than your hair dye does. I can probably learn to make a duplication spell, if I work really hard, so that when you get hair dye I can make it last longer for you. I hope that’s good enough._

_What color is your hair now, anyways? When I left, you hadn’t decided what color you were going to dye it next._

_Sorry about that ink blotch there. Everyone here still writes with quill pens and parchment. Works better with magic, they say, but I think a lot of them just don’t want to use Muggle technology. That’s non-magic, by the way, so no telephones or anything here. I mean, seriously, Harry! We send letters by owl. OWL._

_They bite, Harry._

_Anyways, Greg and Sally keep trying to convince me to come play Quidditch, which is sort of like a whole lot of games except for the fact that it’s played high above the ground on flying broomsticks. I’ll send you pictures- the Wizarding kind, they move._

_I’m running out of parchment now, so I guess I’ll have to write another letter later once I get more. My ink bottle- because I have to carry an ink bottle, you know, for the QUILL PENS?- broke in my school bag and now almost all of my parchment is too stained for anything except scratch paper. Write me back- just give it to the owl, if it hangs around, or toss it in the post labelled for me at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and they’ll get it, apparently._

 

_Hugs and kisses,_

_John_

 

John finishes scrawling his letter to Harry, waiting for his ink to dry before folding it up and reaching for the yellow sealing wax kept at the corner of all the writing desks in the Hufflepuff Basement with the badger seal next to it. The dancing vines in the planter reach out to tap his wrist when his wax starts to drip a little too much, guiding him to drip it in the right place. 

“Thank you,” he tells the vines, and they wave goodbye before returning to their trellis. 

He likes it here. The Hufflepuff Basement has low ceilings and round doors, cozy and always warm. It reminds him of when he and Harry read _The Hobbit_ and tried their best to draw Bag End and Hobbiton, with plants everywhere and roaring fires and the round little doors. Everybody watches out for everybody else, with the older students helping younger students in their best subjects. 

It makes Hogwarts just that little bit smaller and more manageable, and he can see a future here. John can see himself, in a few years, helping Professor Sprout set up for Herbology classes for the first-years and learning to heal wounds in the Hospital Wing.

They care for people here, and John’s always been a carer. Cares for Harry when she provokes people and gets herself beaten up over her radical fashion sense, her attitude, and her general inability to know when to stop pushing. Cares for Mom when she drinks too much, makes her the right breakfast when she’s hungover so she’ll still eat. He doesn’t like leaving them, but here he can learn how to care for more people than just his family. 

Keeping people safe is more important than going on adventures. 

“If I don’t show up at dinner,” he calls as he heads to the exit from the Basement, “I got lost on my way to the Owlery.”

“It’s the West Tower, not the North,” someone answers.

“Thanks!”

 

***

 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ron Weasley, making a lady cry like that.” Arthur leans back in his chair, feather levitating above him with practiced ease. Not that he’ll tell anyone it’s practiced ease. It’s the secret of the pureblooded families, that their children can practice magic outside of school with their magical signature confused by their relatives. 

Not that it would have helped Weasley much. He’s incompetent. 

The other first-year Gryffindors murmur in agreement. Gryffindors stand up for what’s right, and Weasley’s outburst isn’t. 

“Some help you are, Pendragon,” Weasley retorts, escaping out of the classroom with Potter on his heels. 

“Should we go find Hermione?” Greg, one of Leon’s friends, asks. 

“Give her a little time to herself. We can find her after dinner, get the house-elves to bring her something to eat. Girls always need a little bit of time when they’re upset.” Morgana does, at least, but it sounds a lot more confident if he says everyone does.

In the Great Hall, Arthur slides in between his Knights Leon and Percy, elbowing Percy away to make room for him to eat. Percy exchanges a long-suffering look with Percy Weasley, earning himself another elbow in the ribs. 

“You eat a rather incredible amount of food, Percy. Make some room on the table for the rest of us. The house-elves aren’t going to starve you.” Percy stacks a couple of his plates, shrinking his desserts with a flick of his wand to make more room. 

Weasley and Potter slink in later, looking guilty for all of the time it takes to recognize the feast laid out in front of them. They join the rest of the Weasleys, the long Gryffindor table exemplifying the divide in Gryffindor House. The Knights and Arthur on one side, the masses on the other. Arthur isn’t the only one at Hogwarts who has found the Boy Who Lived slightly… timid and rather disappointing. 

The doors bang open at the end of dinner, Professor Quirrell stumbling in. Father and Lady Violetta gave them quite a comprehensive education on defending themselves from all kinds of magic, not just Dark magic, and Arthur has always felt something slightly off about Quirrell. If Morgana and Sherlock weren’t Slytherins, he’d check with them. They’ve always been able to sense things he couldn’t.

“Troll! Troll in the dungeon!” Professor Quirrell staggers in to the Great Hall, panicked. “Just thought you ought to know.”

He collapses, and Arthur sneaks a glance at the Slytherin table while everyone panics, the prefects trying to maintain order in each House. Percy is bellowing for everyone to _sit down and shut up_ , the fifth-year Hufflepuffs are trying to comfort frightened first-years at both the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables, and the Ravenclaw prefects are having a debate about the wards and the plausibility of various methods of bypassing them. 

Morgana stands up without saying a single word and every single Slytherin sits down at the table again. When almost all of the other Houses have made their mass exodus, they finally stand up and leave in two single-file lines behind the Slytherin seventh-year prefects. 

Arthur watches Potter and Weasley discuss something and slip away, following the Slytherins towards the dungeon. 

Fools, if they think to take on a troll. Brave fools, but Gryffindor never assured wisdom, just bravery.

 

***

 

“Something is wrong with Professor Quirrell.”

“Sure, he’s a little weird, but it isn’t exactly like you’re one to talk.” Draco gives Sherlock a look over his textbook, Blaise Zabini agreeing from the other side of their dormitory. 

Sherlock stares into nothing, watching two of his wraiths mimic Draco and Blaise. The wraiths are harbingers of death, pale skeletons in inky swirling robes, similar to human skeletons but not exactly right, too long and narrow. They are also surprisingly amusing, with a macabre sense of humor. 

“He stinks of death, of two deaths.”

“Don’t pay him any mind, Draco. The Holmeses have always been teetering just on this side of crazy. Sherlock’s just on the wrong side of that line.”

Sherlock glares and the wraith behind Blaise throws its hands to its throat, miming choking itself. It collapses to the ground in a clack of bones and a pool of magic that does a poor mimicry of cloth. Sherlock smiles. 

They don’t need to know what he senses. He’ll warn Morgana to be cautious of Quirrell, but nobody else deserves to know what his wraiths tell him. 

Sherlock raises a hand and his curtains snap shut, bidding farewell to his wraiths. They’ve long since learned to give him peace while he sleeps.

 


	8. The Ectoplasmic List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry 'bout the wait, guys, just getting back into the swing of things and life got away from me a little bit.

 

“As I am required by the Headmaster to give one project in which you are required to work together to better interpret your views of the History of Magic, I have here a list assigning pairs. Pick an issue about the development of magic and Wizarding Society, then write an essay about it. By the Headmaster’s urging, pairs are assigned to better understand magical experiences and the interpretation of the History of Magic.” Professor Binns pins an ephemeral list to the blackboard, his Ravenclaw teaching assistant pinning a parchment one to the other side that won’t disappear when Binns stops focusing on it. 

“Many of you will be working across House boundaries,” the Ravenclaw fills in, “and Professor Binns will also allow you to attend the other session of History of Magic if your partner is a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw.” She speaks loudly to be heard over Professor Binns droning on about the project.

John tries to take notes anyways, wondering who he’ll be working with. Binns’ class is by far the worst at Hogwarts, but it’s a lot like some of his classes last year and even more like what Harry writes about in her letters. He’s always been driven to succeed, and if he wants to be a doctor, he’ll have to excel here and during the summers at home. 

Hopefully he’ll get someone who understands a lot more about the History of Magic than he does. A lot of these kids have been raised in this world, with so much of the history told through their childhoods the same way he learned about William the Conqueror and the Colonies and the various monarchs. Or a Ravenclaw. They have Potions with the Ravenclaws and it’s amazing how much easier it is with one of them as a partner. 

Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts and flying with the Ravenclaws, Charms and Herbology with the Gryffindors, and History of Magic and Transfiguration with the Slytherins. 

Class with Gryffindor is always wild and often filled with rampant destruction. Seamus Finnegan doesn’t seem to be able to go a full class period without blowing something up and nobody can decide whether to be in awe of being in class with Harry Potter or with Arthur Pendragon. It’s entertaining, but John isn’t fond of having to watch kids- normally Seamus- be taken off to Madam Pomfrey.

Class with the Ravenclaws always makes him feel a little competitive. John works hard, no doubt about that, but he lives for more than just his books and the pursuit of knowledge. They get caught up in their own discussions of finer points, tiny little insignificant details that matter to nobody else- just don’t tell a Ravenclaw involved in the argument that you think that. When they aren’t caught up in intra-House disputes, they’re always either tremendously engaged in their class or utterly bored and working on some other project. 

And then there’s class with the Slytherins. The classroom is always tense, with Hufflepuffs trying to make conversation with Slytherins and Slytherins looking at them like they’re horribly confused. John ignores them so long as nobody gets hurt. There have been a few close calls in Transfiguration, but according to Professor Sprout, there are always close calls as first-years. 

“That’s all for today. Remember to check the list and read Chapter Seven, Part Two, Subsection E with particular attention to Paragraph 9.” Binns turns around and walks through the wall, heading directly to his office. There’s a schedule of when he teaches class on the door of the corner stall in the second-floor restrooms because he cuts through the stall when heading to or leaving class. 

“Single file,” the Ravenclaw orders, “and pick up your marked homework from the first pile and the completed handouts on project details from the other. I expect you to have a topic picked out with your partner by this time next week. Class dismissed.”

John packs his things up slowly, letting the first rush of Hufflepuffs excited to see who they’ll be working with and Slytherins equally excited but trying so hard not to look like they care crowd around the list before he heads up there. He’s been extra careful after spilling his ink bottle inside his bag a few times. Seriously, Hogwarts. Pencils are lovely, and a regular pen even better. Even a fountain pen would be better than quills. 

Seriously. _Quills_. What is this, the Dark Ages?

“Who have you got, John?”

“Haven’t even taken a look yet. Who do you have, Hannah?”

“Neville Longbottom, from Gryffindor. He’s nice, I met him helping Professor Sprout clean up after Herbology one day.” Hannah smiles, a little bit shy, and John joins her at the board, hunting down the list for his name. They put the names in two columns, which in the Ravenclaw’s narrow cursive makes for tough reading. 

What would be so wrong with a pen and some regular paper? Parchment and quill pens make for a mess, and he knows he’s not the only one struggling. Only the pureblooded students seem comfortable with it at all. The Muggleborns, like John, all grew up with reasonable writing utensils and the halfblooded students grew up using both. 

The Ravenclaws give seminars about magic and the influence of traditional writing instruments as magical tools as compared to the merits of modern writing instruments. John got dragged to one his first week when he made the mistake of wondering aloud in Defense Against the Dark Arts why they couldn’t use pencils and paper when he broke a quill for not the first nor the last time. 

Ah! There he is. Holmes, Sherlock.

Hannah follows his finger and stifles a surprised gasp. 

“Oh, John, I’m sorry.”

“That bad, huh? I don’t know the name.”

“Walk with me.” Hannah leaves, heading in what he thinks is the direction of the covered bridge, but he’s not quite sure. “You know the tall Slytherin boy, mop of dark hair, always looks bored?”

“Half of them always look bored, Hannah, and the rest look avidly interested in all the wrong things.”

“Well, fine, he’s one of the most Slytherin of the Slytherins. The Holmeses, they aren’t normal, John.”

“Thanks for the warning, Hannah,” he tells her. A really specific warning. A warning that tells him absolutely nothing about what he’s getting in to. 

“Any time, John.”

“Do you- do you know where I might track him down?”

Hannah considers for a moment. “Ask Mike. He has an uncanny knack for finding the right people.”

John grins. He does know where to find Mike. Mike’s usually ensconced in the Common Room when he’s not in class, a cup of coffee in hand and a book on his lap. The chair directly to the left of the fireplace, the squishy black one with a blanket in their House colors always neatly folded on the back, has already become known as Mike’s Chair.

“Thanks, Hannah!” he calls over his shoulder, already jogging back to the Hufflepuff Basement. 

 

***

 

“Can I see?”

Sherlock flops down on his back rather than turn around, giving a lazy flick of his wand to pull a cushion over so he doesn’t crack his head against the stone floors. Morgana has been lecturing him endlessly about masking his abilities, going so far as to alternately threaten to owl Merlin or send a Stinging Hex his way. 

He had one of his wraiths stalk her so he could sneak itching powder into her favorite dress for that one. They make the best lookouts, able to warn him silently and unable to betray him to anyone else. 

He isn’t the most patient of people, but when it comes to his sort-of siblings and a good prank, he can wait for it to come to fruition. 

“Been to the library, Miss Molly Hooper?”

She flinches, then visibly steels herself. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You really should be.” 

Molly sits down on the other side of the Astronomy Tower, back against the wall as she pulls out a journal and releases the library book he saw from some kind of protective spell. She sorts through her bag, leaving her quills inside and pulling a refillable fountain pen out to scribble in what, at a sideways glance, looks like precise cursive. Quick and perfectly legible, it’s the perfect script for notes and easily transferrable from pencil and paper to quill and parchment. 

He ignores her, integrating the skritch of her pen nib and the turn of pages into his silence, watching his wraiths watch Molly and letting his senses drift through the current of magic that thrums out from the oldest parts of the castle. Well, he assumes they’re all the oldest. They’re certainly the heart of the castle’s magic and the binding points for all its wards, including most of the parts known to be original in _Hogwarts: A History_. 

The Founders and the successive Headmasters since must not have thought about proofing the castle against— people like him. Demigod is the technical word, but Sherlock’s not particularly connected with the Wandering God who sired him. Not like Merlin is, at least. Merlin… speaks to? Prays to? He doesn’t know what the right words would be in that case, but Sherlock can feel it if he’s nearby. It’s like when someone’s shouting and he covers his ears, able to hear words and know them to be words but not tell what they are. Sometimes, he even feels a reply. 

Sherlock doesn’t do that. He’s certain he can, has explored his abilities enough to feel his blood ties to Mummy and Mycroft and another one, more as deeply ingrained in his blood as in his magic. He doesn’t follow to see where it leads. He’s uninterested in people who abandoned him.  

“It must be difficult.”

Sherlock’s attention snaps back to Molly, surprised. She’s set down the journal and is watching him with the wisdom born of tragedy in her eyes, finishing plaiting her hair into two braids. 

“What makes you say so?”

“Never being able to turn it off. Magic makes people feel more alive, feel the power surging through them, but all the books say that they… that it’s too much, all the time, to enjoy the way other people do.” Molly rushes her last sentence, clearly wanting to discuss her research but not entirely sure how comfortable she is talking about it, and starts to shove her things in her bag to leave. 

Sherlock lets her. 

When the door creaks open again, he doesn’t look. 

“Haven’t you done enough, Molly? Go away!”

“Sorry, mate, not Molly.” Sherlock watches out of the corner of his eye as a boy with a Hufflepuff tie stands stiffly by the opposite wall, hands clasped behind him and spine perfectly straight despite his easy tone. Too easy, Sherlock decides, carefully so. He slips into his Mind Palace for a moment, searching for the names and brief biographies Mummy and Mycroft had him memorize. John Watson, Muggleborn, deemed unimportant as a potential ally. 

He scans Watson for more details. Cuts on his hand from sharpening quills, unfamiliar with the procedure, but bandaging himself up competently rather than having Madam Pomfrey or  even one of the older students in his House heal it. Ink stains on the underside of his sleeve from dragging it through his writing, unused to writing with real ink. The mix of eager naivety and loneliness that marks all the Muggleborns who aren’t adjusting well to a world so far separated from what they know is clear in the set of his features, will only become clearer in the lines of his face as he ages unless something changes. 

Normal.

No wonder he’s a Hufflepuff, the irrational part of Sherlock, the part that has absorbed all the prejudices of his upbringing, says. 

Boring.

“I’m John. John Watson. We’re supposed to work on the History of Magic project together?”

“Boring,” Sherlock announces. “Either write it on whatever boring topic you want and don’t expect my help or,” he slides easily to his feet, getting just close enough to Watson that if he’s any kind of wizard, he’ll feel the energy of Sherlock’s wraiths, “you can help me do something genuinely interesting, something that will require quite a bit more than a few library books.”

Watson meets him stare for stare, not flinching away the way Sherlock wanted him to, and leans in just enough to make Sherlock uncomfortable in his own lack of personal space.

“Deal,” Watson says, and Sherlock was expecting a whisper and his voice rings through the tower room too loud, too much, and it’s Sherlock who tears himself away, remembering at the last moment to pretend to use his wand to summon his things back into his bag as he leaves with a swish of black robes. 

He pauses in the doorway, one hand on the carved stone of the frame, and looks back at Watson. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t _do_ things like this, but something compels him to introduce himself despite the fact that Watson _obviously_ knows who he is already.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and I’ll see you at the Groundskeeper’s Cottage in five days time.” He leaves, disappearing down the nearest staircase before Watson can even think to follow him and suddenly extremely glad that nobody could see who would tattle to Morgana.

He can’t believe he did that.

He even bloody _winked_!

 


	9. The Forest

 

“You? With a Hufflepuff?”

Arthur manages to hold it together for all of thirty seconds before bursting into laughter, wiping the tears from his eyes with the end of his scarf. Sherlock scowls and wishes not for the first time that Mummy hadn’t made him promise not to kill Arthur and that Merlin hadn’t extended it to maiming and public humiliation that can be traced back to him. That’s the best part about Merlin- he doesn’t want Sherlock to be perfectly polite to Arthur, he just wants him to be clever with his pranks. 

He’s going to have to outdo himself and probably recruit Morgana for this one.

It might even require Mycroft, he thinks, shuddering at the mere idea of asking his brother for that favor. 

“This is better than I could have hoped,” Arthur wheezes. 

“How does your big head even fit in Gryffindor Tower?”

“Disappointing.”

“It would take more energy than I’m willing to spend on you.” 

Arthur doesn’t retort, just laughs occasionally at his own thoughts. Sherlock stares out across the Black Lake, cursing Morgana and Mycroft for conspiring to make him spend an afternoon with Arthur twice a month. _We’re family, Sherlock_ , Mycroft chides and _you'd fight with Mycroft, too_ , Morgana adds, and when their logic fails they resorted to blackmail and outright threats. 

“If we pretend we had the house-elves bring us a private brotherly picnic, do you think we can escape to different corners of the castle and not have to show up at dinner where Morgana can see us?”

“Maybe last time, when we were scheduled to sit at the Gryffindor table.” Morgana knows full well that the Gryffindors don’t like Sherlock and Arthur doesn’t like Sherlock enough to defend him before his House. Not that Sherlock needs defending, but Arthur might be marginally more tactful because he actually _likes_ his stupidly reckless Housemates. 

Of course he does. He’s just like them.

“This is awful.”

“Morgana is expecting us,” he continues as if Arthur said nothing. “She’ll make the entire House behave, though Malfoy might risk some comments just because Mummy was friends with the Black sisters once upon a time.”

“Typical.”

Sherlock lifts his hand and his book floats above his face, blocking out the afternoon glare. Arthur pulls a roll of parchment out of his bag, working on his Potions essay. It’s become their typical forced afternoon. Trade a few insults, then work on homework until dinner where one of them sits in silence at the wrong table and the other ignores them in favor of their own friends. 

“You ought to at least pretend to use your wand.”

“Find a new complaint.”

“Don’t even tempt me.”

 

***

 

“Watch out for Sherlock Holmes. He’s not normal, that one.”

John turns around, a little startled, to find Sally standing outside Potions classroom. He doesn’t really spend time with Sally on her own. She’s so serious about everything that it’s horribly intimidating. She’s alright with Greg or Phillip or even Leon to temper her, but he doesn’t see any of them in sight. 

“I just have to work with him on a project, Sally, but thanks for the warning.”

“I mean it, John. He’s dangerous.” She pushes herself off the wall, already walking away before her last statement reaches him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

John shakes his head and heads to the library. He has a Potions essay to finish and Professor Snape expects just as much out of his Muggleborn students as the students who were raised in the Wizarding world with potions for sleep and potions for colds and potions for _re-growing bones_ , and that isn’t even the weirdest potion he’s mentioned. 

 

***

 

“Sally, what are we doing?”

She ignores him, weaving slowly on her broom through the stretching branches of the Forbidden Forest to lurk able and behind John. They’re just out of earshot, and Greg looks over at Phillip with dread. 

“Sal, this is a bit like stalking,” Phillip adds. 

“Shut up! We’re keeping John safe.”

Phillip looks over at Greg, who just shrugs. When Sally’s this determined, stopping her is futile. He’s better off making sure they don’t, say, actually trespass in the Forbidden Forest. There was never any doubt Sally would be a Gryffindor. She’s always so focused on doing the right thing, even when it blinds her to details like laws and whether someone wants to be helped or not. She’s brave and true and everything else a Gryffindor should be, but Greg always thought she could use a little wisdom. 

John is sitting on the front steps of Hagrid’s hut, letting Fang slobber all over him while he scratches his back. At noon, Sherlock Holmes comes striding across the grounds.

“Hullo, Sherlock,” John greets him, being completely ignored. 

“Hagrid!”

Hagrid steps out of the cottage. “Ye need Fang, Sherlock?”

“We’re going into the Forest. Professor Dumbledore won’t lift the ban unless we at least take Fang with us.”

“Wait, what?” John asks, stopping petting Fang and getting a lick across his face for his troubles. 

“We’re going into the Forest, John,” Sherlock repeats impatiently. “Do catch up. Somebody’s been killing unicorns and I’d like to write about the historical methods and rationale behind the murder of unicorns with reference to the modern killings in the Forest. The centaurs will allow us to look.”

“Be careful, Sherlock,” Hagrid rumbles. “They have been on-edge, unable to find the perpetrators themselves.”

“I told him Holmes was dangerous,” Sally says. “Holmes is going to get him killed!”

“We can’t follow them into the Forest,” Greg tries reasonably. “Sherlock’s had to get permission from Dumbledore for that. Hagrid wouldn’t let them get hurt.”

“Fine,” Sally harrumphs. “But we will be keeping an eye on John, get him away from Holmes as soon as the History of Magic project is over.”

“Sally, I didn’t know you cared!” Greg mocks, dodging the pinecone thrown his way.

 

***

 

“The Forbidden Forest.”

“Yes, John, don’t be trite.” Sherlock focuses and pushes one of his wraiths away, sending it to find the closest centaur. Unless they have a death-sighted centaur who is any good at playing charades, they’ll feel the touch of old magic and come running. Centaurs are creatures of the old magic, they can feel and more importantly, recognize, the touch. They will come and find him.

“We’re going into the Forbidden Forest, where something is killing creatures, protected only by an overly affectionate dog.”

“ _Unicorns_ , John. One of the most magical creatures in the world, under the personal protection of the centaur herds. Very few can track a unicorn, much less be willing to hurt it and able to do so without immediate repercussions from the herd. The serial murder of unicorns through history? _That’s_ fascinating.” Sherlock smiles, a private expression of his delight, and feels a slight resonance with his magic that can only be his wraith finding the centaurs. He stops, John running into his back with Fang tangled in his feet, and waits. 

“Filius Mortis,” the centaur in the lead says as they enter the clearing.

“Centaurs, I apologize for not knowing your names. Killian and Andromeda of the Crystal Forest Herd told me to find you here.” Sherlock bows, holding it for exactly as long as he would for absolutely nobody else. Centaurs are disrespected by almost all wizards, and given minimal respect by all others. Merlin took him out to meet the herd that lives on the Holmes Estate and they’re far more interesting than humans.

The centaurs shuffle into a line, pleased, and the center one speaks first. 

“I am Bane, Filius Mortis, and these are the Centauride Auriga and the Centaur Sextans. We saw your birth in the stars and have long awaited you.” The centaurs bow from the waist in unison, and John just gapes at all of them. Sherlock’s heard it before. People like him aren’t exactly common, and even the seven years between him and Mycroft is considered remarkably close. 

“I would like to find out about the unicorn murders, Bane.” 

“We have the most recent unicorn in our camp, to give it funeral rites tomorrow. If you will follow us, Filius Mortis and… friend.”

Sherlock waits for the centaurs to leave, slipping into stride next to John. “Be polite,” he instructs, “they’re cleverer than you lot and not fond of wizards.”

“You lot? You mean wizards?”

“Of _course_ I mean wizards, who do you _think_ I mean? Muggles, for all their faults, leave centaurs alone.”

“Sherlock,” John pauses, unsure of how to make his point. “You are a wizard.”

Sherlock gives John what Arthur always called his _yeah-sorta-kinda-not-really_ face and keeps walking. 

“The wizard who isn’t a wizard, centaurs in the Forbidden Forest, and unicorn murders instead of obscure book work. Just wait until I tell Harry.”

“Ah, Harry. Brother?”

“Sister, actually.”

“There’s always something.”

The centaurs’ camp is much like the one he knows from home, with enormous stone fire pits and counters built at two levels: standing centaurs and seated centaurs. They have shelters built between the trees, some practical things of wood and oilcloth, some artistic buildings of carved wood and stone. In the center of the camp is the main fire pit, with what he recognizes as ovens built on one side and wide counters. 

Elderly centaurs teach the young to craft their own tools and garden and care for the Forest’s animals. They teach them manners and their history and how to read the stars while the adults share the burden of tending to the Herd and the Forest. Everybody has a purpose and everybody commits to help. It’s the centaur way. 

“Close your mouth, John. It’s rude.”

John’s jaw snaps shut with an irritated look, but he continues staring at everything around him. Sherlock isn’t surprised.

“The unicorn is here, Filius Mortis.”

Sherlock sucks in a deep breath, careful to hide his distress from John, and lets his magic surge out of him. His wraiths take on more detail, going from the shadows of humans to ghosts in nearly-black grey rather than ectoplasmic white. They’ve changed since the last time he allowed himself to see this much detail. His wraiths are not earth-bound spirits, but spirits who have passed on and long to touch the mortal world again without losing themselves to another incarnation. 

That’s what they tell him, at least. 

His magic swarms over the earth, and he brings it to bear on the unicorn. This is hard, the longer something’s been dead. He did trials with a bird that died in the Estate. Slowly, slowly, the unicorn forms in dark smoke visible only to him, dragged out of whatever underworld unicorns go to. He reaches forwards until the tips of his fingers brush the specter, and his world shifts.

He’s in the Forest at night, wandering through the trees, when the birds go silent. He stills, listening to the trees, and Sherlock feels a dead thing approach before the knife sinks into his throat and the dead thing latches on to drink. 

“Sherlock? Sherlock?” he hears, as if through a dream, before his death yanks him back to the real world. He comes back to his senses slowly, to John’s increasingly strident protests and Fang’s confused whine and the shifting of hooves, to his knees on the ground and the hands of his wraiths on him, the steadiness of death-not-his and the old magic not his channeled through them. He doesn’t know if it was intentional or not, but it drags him away from the unicorn’s pain and terror and firmly into himself, making it easier than ever to mute his magic again.

_Thank you_ , he thinks, even though he doesn’t do that. There’s no reply, but his wraiths crowd closer than usual and a third steps around from his shadow, twisting into existence out of his magic.

“What the hell, Sherlock?” John shouts, angrier than worried now. 

“It’s human of some kind,” he gasps to Bane, and the centaur gives him a hand up to his feet in return. “I didn’t get much more. Vampire, perhaps, since it reeked of a dead thing.”

“A dead thing?”

“Very much so. Magical, but tainted. Keep a closer watch than usual on the unicorns, Bane. Whatever this thing is, it isn’t finished.” Sherlock takes a shaky step, and his wraiths wrap their not-quite-solid hands around him and take some of his weight to ease the tremors out of his next steps. “Come along, John. That’s quite enough for today.”

“I don’t understand,” John tells Fang as they return back to the Groundskeeper’s Cottage, the first flakes of evening snow beginning to drift from the sky. 

“Wizards wouldn’t,” Sherlock sighs.

 


	10. New and Old Magic

 

Two days after their incursion into the Forbidden Forest, Sherlock slips into the seat next to John at dinner. 

“In case you’re confused, Sherlock, the people wearing green and glaring are your Slytherins and the people wearing yellow and wondering why you’re here are actually Hufflepuffs.” John returns to his steak, slicing it into an approximation of cubes before eating it. It gives him something to focus on apart from Sherlock’s lack of personal space and his nervous classmates. From the rumors everybody seems so intent on telling him now that he’s working with Sherlock, even the other purebloods are nervous around him. Not that he’s a pureblood, they say. He’s something else that nobody wants to talk about. 

“Stop _thinking_ so loud,” Sherlock complains. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“You can read minds?”

“I can’t,” Sherlock hedges, and John gives up before even starting that line of questioning. 

“Look, we can work on the History of Magic project later, but I’m sort of in the middle of dinner with my House right now. You should go on back- I swear half your House is glaring at me right now.”

Sherlock looks up, grumbling “ _Morgana_ ” under his breath, and slides to his feet smoothly. 

“Work on it after dinner, then?”

Sherlock just leaves. 

“That went well,” he tells Mike, who just slides the last piece of raspberry pie over. 

“Don’t give up on him,” Mike says cryptically, giving John a serene smile that looks mildly out of place on an eleven-year-old, but Mike’s been a little more of a tiny adult than a child. He even drinks coffee. Black. 

The rest of them just shudder and make him go eat breakfast with the caffeine-starved seventh-years studying for their N.E.W.T.s. Some of them give him odd looks and the occasional half-hearted lecture about caffeine’s effect on growing children, but any of the seventh-years doing a Potions N.E.W.T.- quite a lot of them, since it’s required for Healer training- just give them harried looks over their books and mutter something about there being so many potions that could kill you faster. 

“He seems willing to do the entire project,” John replies, “which is good for me since he hasn’t really told me what we’re writing about yet.”

“Goblin wars?” Ernie adds helpfully.

“Unicorns.”

Everyone at the Hufflepuff table shakes their heads and the ones nearest him pat him on the back. They’re all practical people, for the most part, intent on doing the best they can at whatever they’re good at. Gryffindor does what is brave and right, Slytherin does what is cunning and necessary, and Ravenclaw does what is wise and rational. Hufflepuff, they do what is kind and what is practical. 

Sherlock Holmes, from everything he’s seen, is neither. He doesn’t even fit the Slytherin stereotypes. As far as anyone can tell, he’s completely irrational. 

“I really don’t understand what’s up with this guy,” John complains.

 

***

 

“ _The Origins of Magic: A Comprehensive Study in the History of the Wandering Gods_. That’s a little bit of light reading, Molly. Can I call you Molly?” 

Molly’s head snaps up from her book, but it takes another moment before she quite focuses on the intruder. It’s an unspoken rule of Ravenclaw Tower that, barring some disaster that requires the full evacuation of the Tower, nobody invades an occupied reading alcove. Even Professor Flitwick respects that. 

“I’m reading,” she points out.

“I know. I’m asking about your book.”

Molly sets _Origins_ down, taking a good look at the invader in her alcove. Jim from the Start-of-Term Feast, also known as James Moriarty. Jim’s nice. She wouldn’t call them friends, not really, but he hangs around sometimes. 

“It’s a project of mine. Professor Flitwick encourages us all to have personal projects,” she tells him, playing oblivious because she’d really prefer to fly under the radar. She had enough of attention after Dad’s death. 

“The origins of magic? Quite an ambitious project.”

“Safer than experimental curses,” she clips out, because who is he to tell her what’s too ambitious?

Jim lifts one eyebrow, miming shock before it fades into amusement. “Kitten has claws,” he smirks. “I’ll remember that.”

He saunters off into the boys’ dorms, and Molly puts her protection spell around _Origins_ again, tucking it in to her bag to go see if Professor Hudson is still in her office. The most successful Alchemists were always demigods, historically, and Alchemy is one of the few things that requires a touch of old magic to work. 

That’s how the books explain it, at least. Unlike the other studies, where different people are better at it than others, there is a large section of the Wizarding population that is completely incapable of Alchemy. The theory claims that Alchemy was one of the original disciplines practiced by the children of the Wandering Gods and the only one that never made the transition between old magic and modern magic. That, even if they are unable to work old magic, they need to be able to touch it to make Alchemy work. 

She taps at Professor Hudson’s door, classroom 21-A on the second floor of the castle, and waits. 

“Who is it? Oh, doesn’t matter, come on it, the door is unlocked.”

Molly enters, and Professor Hudson is bustling around her chambers with her tea set floating around her. She covered the castle walls with trinkets and art from her students, plenty of them misshapen half-transmuted lumps that showcase early successes of some of her brightest students, and her prized golden statuette that was a gift from the Master Alchemist himself upon receiving her qualifications. It doesn’t seem valuable, more than any other gold object, but it was transmuted from lead just for the occasion. 

“Molly, darling. How can I help you today? Tea?”

“I just had a few questions, Professor Hudson. About my reading. Do you have a moment?”

“For you, Molly? Any time. Here, take a seat, I’ll get you a cuppa.” Professor Hudson waves her wand, murmuring the incantation, and the tea set floats over to ask her how she takes her tea. 

“Thank you.”

“Of course. And call me Mrs. Hudson, please. Professor Hudson sounds so formal outside of my classroom.” She accepts her own cup, dismissing her tea tray to balance on top of a stack of books on the counter. “Now, where were we last? Chapter Nine?”

“The balance of alchemical abilities based on registered blood status.”

Mrs. Hudson folds her hands around her tea cup. “Yes, of course. Now, this is a difficult thing to survey for two main reasons. Firstly, there is the pureblood-halfblood divide in which some who are technically classified as purebloods do not want to identify as such and vice versa. What is the definition of a pureblooded wizard, Molly?”

“The Ministry defines pureblooded designation as when a wizard has all four grandparents as witches or wizards. Socially, it is defined as someone who can trace their bloodline back without a single Muggle, Muggleborn, or half-blood.” Molly’s technically a pureblood, but she considers herself a half-blood since Dad’s mother and Grandpa Alfred were Muggleborn. 

“Good.” Mrs. Hudson takes another sip of her tea, retrieving the plate of biscuits from her tea tray. “The second issue is the secrecy around those who are half-Wandering God. The study is extrapolated from very few data points.”

Molly nods, taking notes. The demigods who were studied for this were all half-Wandering God, half-Muggle or Muggleborn. To confirm the theory of relationships between old blood and the ability to use Alchemy, they need to study at least two more confirmed demigods- one with a halfblooded parent and one with a pureblood parent. 

It’s the confirmation that’s difficult. 

Molly started this project just to understand Sherlock Holmes, but it’s turning in to something far more fascinating than she could have ever guessed.

“Well, would you look at the time,” Mrs. Hudson exclaims after they’ve been discussing for a while. “After curfew. I’ll walk you back to Ravenclaw Tower, Molly. Let me get my slippers.”

 

***

 

Merlin spends quite a bit of time in Perenelle’s kitchen now, cooking for them for once. In the next few weeks, Nicolas and Perenelle will visit Albus and pick up some more Elixer, but right now, they’re running a little low. Not dangerously low, especially not for Nicolas with a grandfather and a great-grandmother as Wandering Gods, but they’re definitely not the healthy, happy immortals he’s known and loved. 

It is a sudden shock, to see Nicolas and Perenelle as breakable, as _mortal_ , after all this time. They’re his constants, his companions between Arthur’s lives, and he’s paid so little attention to them lately because of Arthur. He knew they were uneasy about attacks against their wards, but he didn’t know it was serious until he returned here to find them struggling on with a minimum of Elixer. 

He could have helped, and it stings. His power certainly could have firmed up their wards, made them unbreakable by anyone but the Wandering Gods and their immediate descendants. And only some of their descendants, because he’s powerful even for them. He could have made them safe enough to not need to send the Stone away, to not need to suffer under limited Elixer. 

It’s like they have the flu, he thinks, always weary and aching. He needs to find a way to get them a more regular supply of Elixer or, even better, the Stone back in their possession. The number of people who can overtake Nicolas is scant few, it’ll be safe with him. 

_“Merlin”_ , Kilgarrah says as he steps through Merlin’s wards as if they aren’t even there, speaking aloud and directly into his head. Merlin grimaces. He forgets, in the interval between Kilgarrah’s visits, about that. He doesn’t really know if it’s a Wandering God thing or just a Kilgarrah thing, since he isn’t acquainted with the others at all. 

“Kilgarrah.” Merlin keeps dicing apples for his fruit salad, ignoring him at much as he can. Merlin still calls him Balinor when he takes human form, but this is definitely Kilgarrah. The same gold slitted eyes as when he was the Great Dragon, a mane of inky dark hair, and a golden tan that can’t decide whether to be skin or scales. 

_“You’re a long ways from the Once and Future King, my boy,”_ Kilgarrah tells him, as if he hadn’t noticed that he’s in Italy and Arthur is in Scotland. 

“I noticed.”

_“He needs you.”_

“He always needs me, but Nicolas and Perenelle do, too. I can only play babysitter for so long, even with Arthur.” The apples float to a different bowl, mixing red and green together as they go. Kilgarrah snatches a few out of the air, and Merlin gives him a stern look.

_“Do not give me that look, Merlin. You’re still a child after all these years and I’m still your father.”_

“When you feel like it. You aren’t the most reliable of parents.”

_“More reliable than most of my fellows. At least you speak to me and I respond.”_

Merlin rolls his eyes and puts up a wordless protection spell over his work area while his back is turned. It won’t stop Kilgarrah, but it might deter him.

He has to have dreams, otherwise immortality would be such an awful burden.

_“Why are you away from Arthur?”_

“He knows how to call for me.”

_“He’s Arthur.”_ Kilgarrah snorts with laughter. _“When does he ever call when he needs you?”_

Merlin shrugs and accepts it, then continues cooking anyways. Mycroft always said there was very little point in arguing with an immortal wizard who has had centuries more experience and an eternity to come up with the best arguments. That’s sort of how he feels when talking to Kilgarrah. Always has, always will.

_“You’re terrible at your job.”_

“You gave it to me.”

_“You were born to be Arthur’s guardian, to bring about whatever needs to be brought and to guide the Once and Future King.”_

“And whose fault is that?”

Kilgarrah laughs, ushering Merlin outside. Wings snap out of nothing, shading him from the afternoon sun, and they stand at the cliffs overlooking the water.

_“Have you ever wanted to fly, Merlin?”_

“That’s what broomsticks are for.”

_“Not the same.”_ Kilgarrah’s wings rustle in irritation, reminding Merlin of how he would perch on that rock underneath Camelot and be frustrated when Merlin wouldn’t accept his destiny or any of that codswallop. He was such a child back then, back in Arthur’s first life, afraid of his magic and even more afraid of how his magic was too strong, even for Druid magic. 

It only feels stranger now, with Wizarding blood getting more and more diluted with every passing century, with his peers becoming rarer and rarer. Nicolas Flamel, Gellert Grindelwald, Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes. Gellert went mad from the conflict of his magics and Merlin fears that Sherlock may be headed in the same direction. 

_“The boy will be fine.”_

“No predictions of doom and gloom this time? No telling me to kill Morgana?”

Kilgarrah steps off the edge of the cliff, wings flaring open to catch on the wind, and by the time he reaches the cloud line and disappears from view Merlin can already see his dragon tail reappearing.

Cryptic bastard. 


	11. What Are You Doing For Christmas?

 

With four days until their paper is due in History of Magic, John hasn’t seen Sherlock in days. Not in any of the classes they have with Slytherin, not in the Great Hall, not even in passing while he wanders the castle. He’s started writing a backup paper about one of the Goblin Wars just in case. 

“Remember what I said, John?” Mike falls into step beside him, smiling beatifically. 

“About what?”

“The Astronomy Tower is one of his favorite haunts. You ought to try there.”

Oh. Right. Sherlock. He can’t bring himself to not be intrigued by the crazy bastard, but he’s more than a little confused by his behavior. He drags John along on his thing in the Forbidden Forest, collapses and has to be helped back to the castle, and then joins him at the Hufflepuff table out of the blue before completely dropping off the radar. 

“What makes you say that?”

Mike’s smile grows. “You’ve been moping around the Common Room and taking more walks than usual ever since you sent Sherlock away from us in the Great Hall. I’m good at finding things, John, and what you need right now is up in the Astronomy Tower.”

Mike leaves him, headed off towards the library, before John can say anything to that. John makes to follow, but the staircases turn him towards the Astronomy Tower instead, and who is he to argue with that? Hogwarts knows best, right?

Just like Mike said, Sherlock is in the same room at the top of the Astronomy Tower, standing at the window staring over the grounds. A breeze blows through the open window, rippling Sherlock’s school robes behind him and ruffling his unruly curls. For a moment, it looks like he’s surrounded by the swirling of living shadows, but they vanish when he blinks. Trick of the light. 

“Why are you here? You made it quite clear that my company was undesirable.” Sherlock doesn’t look away from the window.

“Maybe I changed my mind.” John takes two steps into the room, stopped by the absolute mess of papers strewn on the floor. “Or maybe I want to pass History of Magic and you disappeared.”

Sherlock reaches for his wand, giving it a wordless flick at the papers on the ground. Unlike when John’s seen him do magic before, he doesn’t put his wand away immediately, leaving it in his hand where he stands. A sheaf of parchment pages covered in Sherlock’s scrawl lands in John’s hands, with intermittent paragraphs that look like John’s own hand. 

“You forged my writing!”

“I wrote the entire paper, saving you the trouble of doing any more than you had to. I believe that means you ought to be thanking me.”

“Yeah, whatever.” John can’t find it in himself to be upset about it at all. Paper’s long enough, longer than it’s actually supposed to be, and the first chunk of it looks good. “What wood is that? I haven’t seen any wands like yours.”

Sherlock glances down as if he forgot it was in his hands. “There aren’t any like mine.”

“Aren’t there only so many combinations? I know Mr. Ollivander said he uses phoenix feather, dragon heartstring, and unicorn hair.”

Sherlock tucks his wand away. “Ollivander didn’t make mine. Ebony and Thestral tail-hair, thirteen inches. It would take extenuating circumstances for anybody else to even work magic with my wand.”

“Sycamore and phoenix feather, eleven and three-quarters inches.”

“Bursts into flame with if you’re boring. John Watson, you just became quite a bit more interesting.” Sherlock prowls across the room, papers sorting themselves into haphazard stacks as he crosses. “What did you really come here for, John? Not to ask about my wand, I’m certain.”

John doesn’t reply, watching Sherlock circle around him and wondering exactly why he did come up here. He didn’t really have a plan or anything. He just… showed up. Mike told him where and he went running. 

Well, nobody denies that he’s charismatic, right? 

They just all think he’s a charismatic freak who is destined to go Dark, and that being Sorted in to Slytherin just confirms it. 

“What are you doing over the Christmas holidays?”

_Bloody hell, John, can’t you be a little smoother than that? Talk about an awkward transition._

“Back home with Mummy and Mycroft, then the Christmas party at the Minister’s. Morgana will insist I stay there until we return to Hogwarts.” Sherlock’s circles grow wider and slower. “Awful and boring as usual. Mycroft will be interfering, Morgana will pretend she’s both Arthur and I’s big sister, and the Minister and Mummy will have long discussions to determine the fate of Wizardkind. Do you know how difficult it is to win an argument with an ancient wizard who is still one of the most powerful wizards in the world and dead-set on making me spend quality bonding time with Arthur and Draco?”

“No,” John says, completely deadpan. “No, I really don’t.”

Sherlock breaks out of his spiral, collapsing against the wall and sliding bonelessly down it into a sprawl of lanky limbs and Hogwarts robes. It’s almost like a puppet with the strings cut, a complete collapse, and yet his sharp gaze is as active as before. 

“Christmas, then. I assume you have plans.”

“Staying here, actually. Mum was never much for Christmas and Harry is having Christmas with her friend Julia. Cedric told me that Christmas at Hogwarts is lovely.”

Sherlock considers it. “You’ll like Wizard crackers. Always pick one with pink on the wrapper, it’ll be less embarrassing that way so long as you can deal with the occasional surprise mouse.”

“Alright.” John offers a hand and Sherlock takes it, letting John haul him to his feet. He brushes off his school robes and collects his papers with a wave of his wand, even yanking their History of Magic paper from John’s hands, sliding the stack into his school bag without sorting it at all. 

“So, what did we learn about the history of unicorn murders?”

“That something dead is killing unicorns right now for their blood,” Sherlock says with a disappointed look that John didn’t remember that.

“And you wrote about that for this many pages? Just a repeat of _something dead is killing unicorns in the Forest_? I’ll be glad to see the grade on that one.”

Sherlock scoffs in disgust. “I wrote about the history and rationale with correlations between the methods of historical solved killings and their rationales in order to make suppositions about the killings in the Forest and the Jack the Ripper killings.”

John pauses in the middle of the staircase. “Hold on, I thought Jack the Ripper killed a bunch of women, not magical horses!”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “He killed half Muggles, half witches exactly with a unicorn death from a different herd after each murder. Theories say he was using unicorn blood to heal himself after the killings to avoid going to St. Mungo’s or a Muggle hospital, but the unicorns were dissected just the same as the women. That’s unnecessary work if all he needed was the blood. Fascinating case, but all the evidence is conjecture. In the Forest, I get to see it, take the evidence for myself.”

“Like some sort of wizard detective.”

Sherlock makes a distressed noise. “Not _just_ a wizard detective, so much more than that!”

“So like what?”

“I don’t know.” Sherlock frowns. “I’ll think of a name for it.”

 

***

 

_Dearest Draco,_

 

_Your father and I are so proud of you in your classes, Draco, but we do worry that you are not making friends the way you ought to be. I understand that Harry Potter, despite his popularity, is not the type of person you’re interested in befriending, but there are others in your year at Hogwarts who your father and I think you ought to be interested in. Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini are fine, but you’re better than them, darling. Consider Arthur Pendragon, the Minister’s son, he may be a Gryffindor but his sister is a proper Slytherin. Or Sherlock Holmes, Lady Violetta’s youngest, who is in your House._

_We have been invited to the Minister’s private Christmas party as one of the guests who will stay in Pendragon Manor for the entire week of festivities. The Holmeses will be there as well, of course, since Lady Violetta is one of the Minister’s closest friends. You ought to have plenty of time to get to know them, forge the alliances that will allow you to succeed in the future. Friends made at Hogwarts will be the cornerstone of your success._

_We are so pleased to have you home next week, dearest Draco. I have attached some of your favorite treats and a new family ring, love. Do take care of it, I enchanted it to protect you. Your father wishes you well._

 

_Love,_

_Mother_

 

Draco folds the letter neatly, placing it with the others in his bag before untying the package twine and unwrapping the paper without tearing it. A carefully wrapped package of what he’s guessing is brownies, individually-wrapped hard candies, and a velvet box with a silver ring inside it. He slides the ring on his finger, flexing his hand to make sure it doesn’t interfere with his range of motion. Mother picked it out, so of course it doesn’t. 

He glances down the table to where Morgana Pendragon holds court. For a first-year, he ought to be honored to get to sit this close to her. The Slytherin table is very much a hierarchy, with Morgana Pendragon at its center surrounded by the Slytherin prefects and the pureblooded nobility. He gets to sit this close as a first-year because he’s the child of two of the most powerful pureblooded families, but it doesn’t ease the sting of being this far away. 

Morgause Medhir sits at Morgana’s right hand, a fifth-year and Morgana’s best friend, last survivor of the deeply Dark House Medhir. The rest of the Medhir were either killed in the fighting or executed after the Dark Lord’s demise, leaving only Morgause. At Morgana’s left hand is Sherlock Holmes, who she calls her almost-brother. Much like Crabbe and Goyle were raised alongside him to be his protectors, the Pendragon and Holmes children were raised together. 

Sherlock Holmes is dancing on the knife’s edge of sanity, but he’s so much better than Draco for some reason. It’s even worse than Potter with his righteous attitude and his unstoppable popularity because at least on vacations he gets a break from Potter. He has to deal with Holmes at all sorts of events in pureblooded society.

“Something wrong, Draco?” Pansy asks, pausing in drawing on Blaise’s face with an eyeliner pencil. He’s made the mistake of falling asleep at the Slytherin table one too many times for Pansy to resist. Draco doesn’t stop her because the girls are allowed into the boys’ dorms but not the other way around and Pansy has a taste for very clever vengeance. Besides, Blaise ought to be glad she isn’t using a spell to fix it in place. 

“I won’t be at your Christmas party this year, Pans. Father got an invite to the Minister’s party.”

“I’ll save some of those peppermint finger cookies you always like,” she promises, then goes back to her rendition of an anatomically correct heart in glittery pink eyeliner. 

Draco has to commend her on her attention to detail, though he’s not entirely sure if it’s cheating that she’s using a spell to keep it at a sharp point. She is doing her drawing with only minimal glances at a reference book, which is commendable, but Pansy was always quietly interested in anatomy and how the various healing spells actually worked. 

Pansy would be an amazing Healer, if she had to get a job. Her children will want for nothing and they will never have to be subjected to the ‘equality’ at St. Mungo’s that makes it difficult to get service faster no matter how much money the family donates to the hospital. 

Draco never intends to work. The Malfoy name means that people will pay him to attend parties, attend meetings, be seen in public with them. People even pay Mother to come shopping with them in the finest Wizarding districts around the world, paying for much of her purchases for the honor of being seen with her. 

That’s how things ought to be done.

No scrabbling for leftovers for a _real_ pureblood. Blood traitors don’t count. 

Pansy’s family is well-off and she isn’t objectionable. Unless Father can make a better match, a more powerful pureblooded woman, he will probably end up marrying Pansy. They’re both very aware of it, but it doesn’t matter much. There’s no stopping it, but they don’t have to worry for years. 

With one more glance down the table, he picks up his bag and leaves for the Common Room. Mother will expect his reply later today.

 

***

 

“You’re staying here?”

“Don’t be thick, Sally, you know how busy my family is over the holidays. People coming for special dinners, meetings with friends they don’t see often, and catering to people who can’t cook? Mum said I ought to stay here this year so she doesn’t have to make Christmas dinner for us, too.”

Greg sits down on one of the courtyard benches, not even bothering to wipe the thin layer of frost that clings to everything off before sitting down. Sally casts a Warming Charm before she sits down, but she’s very fond of skirts even in the cold and apparently, their school robes don’t do a good job of blocking the cold from bare legs. 

Greg’ll never understand fashion. When there’s snow on the ground, it’s a little too cold for skirts and way too cold for bare legs.  Sally seems to think otherwise. Greg doesn’t argue with Sally.

“You could come over to ours. My mum isn’t as good a cook as yours, but she can cook for an army.”

“I already said I’m staying! This way, I don’t spend my holiday selling pumpkin pie and turkey _with_ the mashed potatoes, thank you very much, it’s much better that way. It’s a lot less exciting than selling and repairing broomsticks.”

“I don’t know,” Sally argues, falling immediately into the strains of a debate they’ve had a hundred times. “If I hear one more first-year parent say they want to get their child a broom for Hogwarts, I will sell them one just to snap it over my knee.”

“You wouldn’t abuse a broom like that.”

“Thank you for not thinking I wouldn’t be strong enough.”

“I’m not that dense.”

Sally grins. “I wonder, sometimes.”

“Rude!”

Sally doesn’t bother with a retort, and they sit there in the companionable silence that comes from years of friendship. There they stay for nearly two hours, enjoying the afternoon, before Sally leaves to finish packing for home.

“I wish I had a glass of hot cider _,”_ he muses aloud, leaning back against the stone of the castle and letting the snow drift around him. 

“Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it,” the house-elf squeaks, setting a steaming mug down in Sally’s vacated spot before vanishing again.


	12. The Start of Christmas Holidays

 

“I could be sitting with my Housemates,” Arthur suggests, and Morgana frowns at him. 

“He could be sitting with his Housematers. Go on, Arthur, make us all happy.”

“Sherlock,” Morgana warns. He folds back into the corner, face pressed to the window, in sullen silence. Arthur does the same thing on the opposite bench, leaning against the interior wall to be as far from Sherlock as possible. 

All they need is Mycroft filling the last space with his umbrella and that patronizing look that says they’re all fools and only he knows it and their train ride will be complete. 

“I,” Morgana announces, “am going to change. When I return, you will both still be here. Ignore each other if you will, but break anything of mine and I will make your lives a living misery until such time as I feel appropriate.”

“Yes, Morgana,” they agree, because she learned from an early age how to do Mycroft’s intimidation thing and she knows enough about the two of them to make things very uncomfortable if she so chooses. They’re stubborn and they don’t like each other, never have, they’re not _fools_. 

Much as Morgana would argue that sometimes.

“She’s determined to keep shoving us together until we play nice,” Arthur groans. “Holidays are going to be terrible.”

“You’re just learning this now?” Sherlock couldn’t keep the utter disdain out of his voice even if he wanted to. Merlin’s beard, Arthur’s thick. 

It always amuses him to swear on Merlin, mostly because it frustrates Arthur and they all know that Merlin grows a terrible beard. They made him try once and everybody involved regretted it deeply. Uther had his secretaries type up an official Ministerial letter requesting that Merlin’s beard cease and desist from its existence on Merlin’s face.

Well, or Arthur bribed the secretaries into doing so and Uther played along. Or more likely that Mummy had something to do with it. He generally assumes Mummy had something to do with things, and then he can be relieved when he’s wrong. Which isn’t as often as he’d like. Mummy is involved in _everything_. 

Morgana returns swathed in one of the violet dresses Mummy gave to her for her birthday, covered in silver embroidery and to his eyes, the shimmer of her own golden magic. Muggles are surrounded by the shadow of their mortality, witches and wizards slightly less so from the vitality of their magic. People like him, like Morgana, the old magic burns away what he can see of their mortality, makes them shine, and none brighter than Merlin. 

“Arthur, Sherlock, go change and return. And remember, Father and Lady Violetta are taking us out to dinner, so dress appropriately.”

Sherlock checks to make sure his miniaturized garment bag, one of the few tricks they learned from Uther, is still in his pocket before heading to the train restroom. Sherlock changes into a grey suit and a green shirt with the skull-and-roses of House Holmes embroidered on the breast of his green cloak. Arthur wears nearly the same, substituting a red shirt and cloak with the golden dragon of House Pendragon. Arthur always wore a lot of red and gold before, immensely proud of his House, but it really became a constant part of his wardrobe once he was a Gryffindor, too. 

“Lovely,” Morgana approves once they return to their compartment, wrapped in a cloak of silver instead of a cloak of red. “I bought you both some Chocolate Frogs, but I get to keep the cards.”

“Morgana!” Arthur complains. 

Sherlock cracks his first one open, taking a glance at the card- Helga Hufflepuff, this time- and hands it over. Morgana slides it into her bag without looking at it. Chocolate frog cards are a weakness of hers- he once got her to run interference with Merlin so he could escape from lessons once by bribing her with a limited edition Morgana Le Fay card. Her namesake. 

The whole ‘Court of Camelot’ jokes were a lot funnier before Sherlock started noticing how Merlin looks at them sometimes, especially at Arthur, like he’s waited so long and can’t bear to wait any longer. Arthur Pendragon, a family name that keeps being reused because every time it crops up, it is accompanied by amazing deeds. Every time Arthur shows up, the Pendragons become the prevalent pureblooded family again. 

In his own history, the Holmeses allied themselves long ago with the Pendragons. One family with a recurring cycle of reincarnation and prosperity that ties them to the most ancient wizard around, the other with a startlingly high number of demigods that makes them feared outcasts in Wizarding society.

Mummy made him memorize the reasons so that he doesn’t just take it for granted that there are three people in this world he can trust his life to, trust never to betray him, and that’s Mycroft, Morgana, and Arthur. It’s the pureblood way, one of those things so implicit into their upbringing that it is never spoken aloud. 

The Holmeses and the Pendragons. 

The Malfoys, the Crabbes, and the Goyles. 

The Mehnir, the Blacks, and the Potters. 

They prosper together or they fail together. Morgause Mehnir, Sirius Black, and Harry Potter are the last of those families. Harry doesn’t even know of his father’s side of the family, of those promises soaked in the blood of their ancestors, Sirius is imprisoned and presumably slowly going mad in Azkaban, and Morgause is tolerated only because of her association with Morgana. 

“Why do all the other families come in threes?” he muses aloud, interrupting Arthur and Morgana’s debate on whether the Hufflepuff or the Ravenclaw team is more of a threat this year. 

“A trinity is a powerful Wizarding number, Sherlock. You know that.” Morgana chastises.

“And yet we don’t have a third.”

Morgana shrugs, returning to her diagram of the relative strengths of all four Quidditch teams with regards to the results of the Gryffindor-Slytherin and Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff matches. “That’s the way it has always been.”

Arthur sets down his quill, capping his ink to avoid mistakes if the train lurches. “We’re too powerful,” he says quietly. 

Arthur never likes to talk about this. He’s had enough of it as the Minister’s son, likes to pretend they’re normal. It’s one of the biggest issues he and Sherlock have, that Arthur wants to deny it and be normal and Sherlock would hate that more than anything.

Sherlock doesn’t push. That’s the best way to get Arthur to clam up.

“We’ve been at the heart of Wizarding society for the last thousand years, at least, since our families officially allied with each other and longer still, if you believe Merlin. The others fade in and out of power. It’s the biggest difference in our political history, apart from there being only two families.” Arthur takes a moment where, in the sanctity of their compartment, away from prying eyes, the weight of being _Arthur Pendragon, son of the Minister of Magic and the Once and Future King_ showing. 

Sherlock leans back, stretching across the rest of his seat. “Don’t count Ravenclaw out yet. Slytherin was the strongest team going in to this season, but I would give the Cup to Gryffindor assuming that Potter manages to stay out of trouble.”

“Unlikely,” Morgana argues. 

Arthur sighs. “I have to agree with you. Sneaking out in the middle of the night, the whole debacle with the Gryffindor-Slytherin match and his broom, and even you can’t have missed the tension between him and Malfoy. Incredibly unlikely that he’ll make the entire season without some sort of major trouble.”

Morgana and Sherlock high-five just to irritate Arthur. “And that gives us the Quidditch Cup and most likely, the House Cup as well.”

“I hate you both.”

“I’m your sister, Arthur, kind of my job to frustrate you.”

“I just enjoy it.”

 

***

 

With so many people gone, the house-elves rearranged everything into a single table, teachers and students all sitting together at mealtimes. They still clique up a little, with Mrs. Hudson gathering her flock of lost souls and students clustering around favored teachers, Professor Snape surrounded entirely by green and silver sweaters. 

Molly was late to dinner, so she’s sort of squished between Mrs. Hudson’s group and Professor Sprout’s group. She only really knows John and Greg, of the group that’s here today, since the others are outside of her year so she doesn’t ever have them in class. 

“Excuse me,” she says to the girl with dark curly hair on her other side, “can you pass the pumpkin juice?”

“Oh, of course!” The girl reaches for it, careful not to spill before setting it down by Molly. “I’m Gwen, by the way. Gwen Smith.”

“Molly Hooper. Uh, first year Ravenclaw,” she adds, since she’s in her favorite rainbow-striped sweater and not her school uniform and she hasn’t seen Gwen in any of her classes. 

“Second year Hufflepuff,” Gwen informs her. “I’m one of the Hufflepuff Chasers.”

“Lovely to meet you, Gwen,” Molly says politely, not knowing where to go from there. She’s not very comfortable with talking about Quidditch. She’s not fascinated by it like the Muggleborns, it was always something they followed in the Prophet and all, but Mom couldn’t exactly teach her how to fly while living in the Muggle world. They would notice and that’s hard to explain away. 

“What’s your project?” Gwen asks. “Ravenclaws, they always have a project, right?”

Molly looks up from her book, surprised that Gwen wanted to continue the conversation. Even a lot of her fellow Ravenclaws leave her alone since she doesn’t want to argue about points. She’s not a huge fan of conflict, never has been. 

“Um. I mean, magic. Old magic. I’m still a little vague on the details.”

“A lot of magical creatures are still deeply old-magic,” Gwen offers. “My dad’s a smith, so we work with magical creatures a lot. They can craft things that we can’t, like goblin-swords and all. They don’t use regular magic, which is why a lot of wizards look down on them, but they can touch this power that none of us can.”

“Most of us,” Molly corrects, before she actually thinks about what she’s saying.

“The demigods. You’re talking about them, right? They’re so rare as to be negligible, right?” Gwen turns on the bench, outright turning her back on her fellow Hufflepuffs and moving her plate closer to Molly’s. 

“Demigods, throwbacks to the old blood, and it takes several generations for them to be unable to touch old magic depending on the strength of their ancestor. Not quite negligible, but rare. Really rare.” Molly flips through her notes, offhandedly looking for the statistics she wrote down somewhere.

“Which one are you focusing on?”

“What?”

“Old magic or the demigods? It’s too broad of a topic for you to cover both. The magic itself or the people who wield it?”

Molly stares. “You should have been a Ravenclaw.”

Gwen scoffs. “Silly House stereotypes. I don’t have to be a Ravenclaw to have a project, you know. I got on to the old magic stuff while researching reincarnation theory. A girl named Guinevere? Yeah, I was a little obsessed as a kid.”

“Met your Lancelot yet?”

“Very funny, Molly.” Gwen twirls her fork, leaning close. “And no, I haven’t. I haven’t really gone looking, either. Twelve’s a little young to have met someone who everyone thinks I’ll be destined for, right?”

“I suppose so. That’s a lot of pressure.” Molly finishes her dinner just in time for the wide array of desserts to replace their dishes, much to the dismay of a couple seventh-years who got so caught up in studying at the table that they forgot to actually serve themselves dinner. Professor McGonagall flicks her wand and transfigures one of the cakes into a stack of ham sandwiches, giving them the disappointed stink-eye that Molly dreads ever being turned on her. 

“I’d love to talk about old magic, though,” Gwen adds. “I only really know the manufacturing of things with old magic from Dad’s work and a little extra from doing research about the who reincarnation gig, you know?”

Molly turns her plate a little more towards Gwen, and if she misses getting a piece of her favorite raspberry cheesecake because they’re too deep in conversation, well, she doesn’t notice. (Greg tells her about it later and she curses her bad luck, but he snuck a piece out of the Great Hall because Mrs. Hudson said it was her favorite and he and John felt bad about sort of ignoring her to talk about Quidditch and weird purebloods, apparently.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to start updating a lot less regularly. It's a big project and it's burning me out a little, so I'm going to take a few breaks to write some other things, but I promise I'm not abandoning it!


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